Email Tip to Avoid Embarrassment

I just received an excellent tip on how to avoid accidentally sending an email reply in Outlook. The tip is thanks to Darek, who attended Better Business Writing last week.

Here is the tip: When you are writing an email reply, type some gibberish (nonsensical information) in the CC line--something like this: ;ljds;lfjad;fj. With the gibberish there, Outlook will not send the message. It will instead provide an error message, like this:

Microsoft Office Outlook does not recognize ";ljds;lfjad;fj".

Using this method, you will never send an email accidentally. You will never again send an incomplete, unedited, sloppy, or embarrassing message by mistake. When you have edited, spellchecked, and proofread the message, simply remove the gibberish and click SEND. Success! Professionalism! A job well done!

I've tried Darek's method, and it works perfectly. Thanks, Darek! By sharing this tip, you have made the world a happier place, with far fewer episodes of miscommunication.

Lynn
_________________________________________________________________
Alternate search spellings: meail, emial, wirtting, writting, embarass, embarras, embareas, embarasing, miscommunciation

Comments

[Matthew Stibbe]

Another tip to avoid embarrassment with email is to set up a rule in Outlook to delay outgoing emails by ten minutes. This way they sit in your outbox just long enough for you to have "d'oh" moment and retrieve them.

[Lynn]

Matthew, thanks. That is a great suggestion. I look forward to trying it.

[Sydney]

This actually does not work. It will send it to the person in the TO: field but then not send it to the person in the CC: field because it doesn't recognize it.

[Lynn]

It always works for me.