10 Carly gives special consideration to email etiquette.
Carly spends a lot of time replying to emails. She also thinks about them a lot. There are a number of things that irritate her about them. She deliberately uses her time cycling to sort out email replies in her head. She thinks it is dangerous to cycle in crazy London traffic with headphones. She either spends her time cycling doing Latin declensions – really for no reason, citing long lists of rhyming words or more recently replying to emails in her head so that the actual responses when she gets to her computer to logon are more measured.
She is not shy to tell others when they have clearly uploaded an old out-of-office reply or one that doesn’t make sense. The ones that really annoy her are the ones where people tell you they are so busy when they return that they cannot filter through the ones they have received but that it is your duty to resend it. This is just plain rude. Why is their time so much more important than mine, thinks Carly? I have to remember when these various people are back, she muses. And then resend them? This is clearly nonsensical. And Carly, being a confident person, has no trouble in informing her colleagues telling them that this is poor auto-reply email etiquette. She does know a thing or two about such etiquette. She has even published in a very popular medical journal about how to email patients or their relatives. This isn’t exactly the same thing, but Carly thinks it still gives her more kudos than others on how to use email properly and appropriately.
There are other things that annoy her about emails from other people. Quite often they use SHOUTY CAPITALS and worse still sometimes in red. She tells them this makes the recipient feel vulnerable and under attack but also reduces the reading rate by 50%. The CAPITALS this is. Not the red. That is just shouty red. This is similar to using underlining, but it is less of an issue as it only interferes with the letters f, j, p, q and y as these have stalks below the line. CAPITALS means you lose the help given by dots and strokes above the line like b, d, f, h, i, j, k, l and t. Carly is keen to teach these useful rules to anyone she meets. A bit like desisting from using abbreviations when no one can remember the full word. She smiles as she never once used FRP in her doctoral thesis which is all about Familial Rectal Pain. “The goal is clarity” whizzes round her head like a mantra regularly. That’s thanks to one of her mentors, Ben Lloyd, who used that phrase regularly.
Carly spends a lot of time working on her email signature so it clear and helpful. She has a quote by a famous woman to inspire people. She has a picture of a cat in it as she works at the Whittington Hospital. This is in Archway, North London, where Dick Whittington turned round when he heard the sound of the Bow bells. He then marched back into London with his black cat and a stick with his belongings in a red and white gingham cloth bag to eventually became Lord Mayor of London. Carly adores cats and has had various black cats over the years. One was Ocean and another Shadow. The black cat in her email signature is rather chubby, obviously female and has a red stethoscope. A bit like Carly. The size. And being female. But Carly only has black, pale blue and lilac stethoscopes. Not a red one.
Carly considers very carefully what she will write in her out of office message. She only does this when she goes away. Some people put them on every week as they are part time but getting all these out-of-offfices is annoying thinks Carly. What people want to know who receive your autoreply is;
What are you doing? And when are you coming back?
In fact, the latter point is really what they want to know. Over time Carly has been very careful to try and write amusing one or two liners. Here are two recent ones.
‘I am off to Brighton to watch the sea, curl up under a furry electric blanket whilst writing and knitting for the week. Back at work on Monday 16th November 2020’.
‘I am off to a week in Greece. A yoga and writing retreat. I know it is blissful as I have been there before. But you have to be silent until lunchtime. Now that will be tricky! Back 13th Sept 2020’.
Sometimes they are longer. Carly feels she is justified if she is going for a long time.
‘I am going on a sabbatical for 4 months to Jaipur. Only 4 years in the planning and endless NHS red tape! I am hoping to try and find myself…..who knows what, where, why and how this will be? But when you have worked for 15 years without a break it is nice to stop and do something different for a bit. I will sporadically check this email account but if you want to see what I am doing you can follow my blog https://howtimegoesfasterasyougetolder.blog/ Back St David’s day 2020’.
Really this has probably irritated people, as she has expected that people can work out when she will be back. But they really only know Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year’s Day. St David’s day is 1st March. Carly says to herself – sometimes we give too much on a plate to people. Thinking keeps people’s minds healthy.
Often, she tells people about her holidays and what she will be doing.
‘I shall be on holiday (riding, knitting, getting hot and sticky) and then at a conference returning late on Wednesday 3rd September 2014. Of course, I will check my emails – who doesn’t anymore? But should I? Probably not. Can I resist? Probably not. Is there WiFi everywhere? Most likely. Enough blither. Let’s get packing and head off to ride a horse in Wales…………before that conference’.
‘I am going to New York tomorrow for a few days. It will be freezing outside and boiling inside, and I am seriously in doubt I will find any Wifi……! So, it maybe I don’t logon to my emails every other minute. But you never know……………Returning 5.2.17’
‘Yet again I am being dragged off to the slopes. Lots of comments on how can you ski so slowly? Thanks for coming with us for this run – really one is enough – why don’t you go and have a nice coffee and do some knitting………..pity me.
And as for checking emails.
Well not when I am knitting.
But try me – I might when I have finished for the day.
Back 19.2.19’
‘I’ll be back 29.8.16 when I return from using my annual leave to plan my retirement to run holidays in Israel. Well sort of…… You never can plan too early! Are you up for a knitting break in Tel Aviv in the years to come? Pilates? Watercolour painting? Singing?’
And some she wonders may really upset people with her directness. Is this a proxy for rudeness? Hmmmmmmmmmmmm wonders Carly?
‘I shall be away on annual leave until Sunday 11th August 2013 with some but limited access to reply to those bugging me on email. You know who you are……………….’
And at other times she wonders if people might be jealous of her exotic holidays. But Carly firmly believes that it is good to work hard and play hard. Maybe this is just internal justification!
‘I shall be travelling around Burma with my family until 3.1.14. Elephants, monks, cycles, knitting => bliss!’
‘Am off to Cuba with three disaffected and disinterested teenagers. So, whilst they stay in the room hunting for that elusive WiFi, I will be dancing in the street and partaking of Cuban food. Lucky me! Back 27th December 2016’.
Carly has lots of comments on her autoreplies. At least one from each set. If she doesn’t then she worries she has offended someone along the way. Really, muses Carly, you have too much time on your hands to be worrying so much about other’s perceptions of your autoreplies. You are a health care professional. Not a stand-up comedienne or professional email auto-reply writer…..She is glad she hasn’t got into trouble yet.
