The dreaded “reply all”

 

I love Outlook…I really do. I cannot imagine what it would be like to do my job without it. I’ve developed little tricks (like, when I see something I want to check out and don’t have time, I drop it in a mail, close it and it gets saved in drafts…love that).  I love contact manager and the ability to drag an e-mail into it and have it create a new record.

 

But something is bothering me. Well, it pretty much always has, ever since I started using Outlook. It’s the “reply all” feature. And really, it’s not so much the feature, but how people use it. I wish that when someone even hovered over the “reply all” button, it would set off an alarm, ask them if they really wanted to reply ALL and then asked them again.

 

We simply get an abundance of mail here. And as much as people think we get tons of mail from the outside, we get more from inside these here walls. And with each unnecessary click to open a mail that says “thanks!” or “me too!”, my enthusiasm for life and e-mail wanes a bit. I’ve tried to determine whether it’s self importance that motivates this activity, but I think it’s actually just carelessness, frenzy, something. But I pray that it does stop one day.

 

Perhaps people should have to re-type the distribution group aliases if they truly want it to go to everyone. And with each keystroke, they can think about whether every person needs to receive the mail.  I’d gladly take Clippy back if we could do away with “reply all”.