Let's Talk Email Netiquette

On any given day, even before I open my email, I know that I will find  at least  one (usually more) email message that one of my friends has forwarded to me. I like to think that my friends and I know each other pretty well, but from the subjects they choose to forward to me I'm not so sure anymore. Having made a career of the military, I have a lot of friends who I would consider politically conservative. I am involved in a number of charitable activities, so I also have friends who tend to lean a little more to the left. But from the onslaught of forwarded email I find in my in basket, I'm beginning to think that a lot of my friends believe I share the very same interests and opinions that they do. Here's a news flash... NOT NECESSARILY!

Now don't get me wrong. I love to hear from all of my friends. But to tell the truth, if all they are going to do is forward every joke that finds its way into their computer, slam Obama, Pelosi, McCain or Palin, remind me that Jane Fonda is a traitor, or show me pictures of naked women and not even include a personal message, then guess what...I'M NOT INTERESTED!

It only takes a couple of weeks until you will have seen enough forwarded email from some of your friends to know that hitting the "delete before opening" key (my term) is the only action required. And boy is it a time saver! Sorry gang, but I am way to busy to waste my time reading any of that junk. I have endured this form of abuse for many years, but recently I decided that  if my friends don't care enough about me to at least say hello when they are frantically hitting their forward buttons, then I don't really care if they are offended when I politely ask them to send me only email that is of a personal nature.

Not only is all of this forwarded junk email a waste of time, it can cause a lot of problems. Normally, the junk email that is forwarded to me includes every email address that's been created since Al Gore invented the internet. My friends could have at least forwarded all of that mail to me via the BCC (blind carbon copy) address box. But  no, they had to put mine and everyone else's internet address in the "To" box for the whole world to see. And don't they know that a lot of these emails they are intimidated into forwarding (seven years of bad luck if the chain is broken) are nothing more than vehicles for spammers to collect email addresses to sell to other spammers? Of course, no one would ever consider spreading a computer virus this way!

Just to be clear about this, if you are one of those people who continues to abuse me with incessant, inane forwarded emails, you can eagerly look forward to receiving an email... of a personal nature... from me in the near future.