Sitting in my email inbox today was an email from someone in the same workgroup as me. When I opened it, I got the popup window "Sender requests a return receipt. Send receipt or not." Usually I deny it, although every now and then I do just so maybe they will get a hint - why the heck do they care whether they need a return receipt? First, this is email. As e-discovery has begun to prove, email is worse than I initially thought. Almost so bad that I don't plan on using email once I'm in the real world, or at least will be very judicious about it. But that's beside the point.
I have concluded that these "request receipt" requests are bogus and indicative of insecurity. If the email is that important or you're so insecure about whether it is read or not, you should pick up the phone instead of emailing.
The second most annoying thing about email is when you're on some mailing list and then someone chimes in and writes back to the whole group "Please remove me from this mailing list." And then twenty people do the same thing. Now that is humor. But almost as annoying as the "request receipt" thing.
If only The Office would have another episode about email. Or an office birthday party. Either way, I'll settle for seeing how Jim and Pam will work out (and yet somehow i doubt it will be what we want...yet).
Wednesday, April 04, 2007
Who really needs a request receipt?
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2 comments:
I'm in the Air Force and we use Outlook for Email. We use Email as notification of new policy and must document that everyone is aware of the new policy. To do this we use a receipt request. If you don't get a receipt back from someone you have to make sure they get the policy change.
Ok, I will grant that as a legitimate use. But the request receipt requests I am getting are from ordinary people (some of which are using outlook, others of which are not). Absent these legitimate tracking reasons, I see no use for having a request receipt for email. (Obviously for faxes, your fax confirmation may serve a different purpose). Particularly because you can choose not to return the request, I do not see how it is that useful generally. Just my two cents.
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