How to Write a Bad Email
Today’s article topic comes courtesy of Jeff Castrovillari. Jeff has read his share of bad emails over the course of his career, and I’m sure most of us have too. Did you know if you google the phrase “email mistakes” you will get 379 MILLION results? Obviously we as a society are doing something wrong when we email. Not the least of which is emailing what should have been a phone call (you know who you are — stop stirring up drama and start picking up the phone).
While I would love to simply list out the email mistakes to avoid, I thought it would be more fun to write a terrible email as an example of what not to do. If your emails look anything like mine, slowly back away from the keyboard and don’t come back until you’ve thought about what you’ve done. No, don’t come back yet — go sit in email timeout for a while. We’ll tell you when it’s time to come back and try again.
A Template for Your Next Bad Email
To: Some poor chump who’s just trying to make it through the day & everyone else on the first email since you hit Reply All instead of Reply
CC: Co-worker with absolutely no context about the topic at hand
BCC: Your manager, your manager’s boss, your mama, your dog, your mama’s dog
Subject: Fw: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: That one thing from before (not that thing the other thing)
Timestamp: 12:45 AM Sunday, September 6th
Importance: This email is the most important thing imaginable in the entire world and must be read in the next 60 seconds
Email body:
Per my previous email, I still don’t have what you were going to send me. I won’t describe what it is that I’m expecting, because you should have written it down when I meant to ask you for it before. I need it and I need it ten minutes ago. It’s very unprofessional to not send me things that I imagined asking you for before the arbitrary deadline that I may or may not have set.
I will now list out all the other times that you have disappointed me since the day we met (and maybe even before that). Item 1, item 2, item 3 — my car is still making a funny noise I’ll have you know, item 4, item 5, item 6, item 7. Oh, especially item 7…. Now that you have been thoroughly shamed, I still need that thing. And don’t do it like last time. I didn’t like certain elements which I didn’t tell you about. Don’t do those again.
I know you don’t report to me, nor do we work on the same team, so consider this email my version of “managing by influence”. That’s right, I’m not-at-all your manager so you have to do what I say. When I say jump, you need to hear it from wherever you are sitting and write me an email to ask how high.
I’ll expect the completed assignment in my inbox within the next hour. This is your top priority even though I don’t have a clear idea of what you do or what projects you might be working on. I’m going to be away from my desk to run an errand for the next 24 hours, but I still need it ASAP. I’ll reach out 10 minutes before the live presentation for any edits.
Let me know if you don’t receive this email.
Philip White, MBA, MS, BA, EIEIO, Bronze Swimming Certificate, Silver Swimming Certificate
MY COMPANY NAME IN ALL CAPS® | Overly inflated title to make myself feel more important | Street address like anyone is actually going to mail me a letter | accidentally misspelled email address@mycompny.com | C: only cool kids get my cell phone #
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