Professional Etiquette: Forwarding E-mails – Part one of a three-part series

 Be it professionally or casually electronic communication is a part of our lives and constantly evolves and changes. The quill became the pen, stone tablets replaced by glass, large storehouses of files, reduced to a USB the size of a pinkie, and paper letters transitioning into E-mail.
E-mails are a communication forum with several unique qualities and uses. E-mails can be formal or informal, and are a variable way to communicate with friends and colleagues. Sending memos from floor six to floor 85 takes seconds and forwarding instructions from a boss to a team is equally efficient. It’s also quite handy for passing out funny photos to colleagues to break up the daily grind. But what happens when that photo-shopped picture of the boss falling into a shark pit gets out? All because Tommy in accounting didn’t check the message before he sent it.
Many people today have multiple e-mail addresses and while this can be a handful for people with seventeen of them, having two e-mail accounts is easy to juggle. A personal e-mail keeps private matters out of the workplace and provides separation between work and home. Be sure to give your business account a professional sound such as your name and then the business, and then let your personal account be anything you enjoy. “cakefrostinglover@notreal.com” is a perfect email for home or close work associates, not so great for clients and professional environments. It may seem like common sense to check but often in the heat of the moment, sensibility goes right out the window.
Imagine your friends adding you on a group chat at work, it’s all innocent enough until someone brings up Nadine! The bitter Type A personality from the next town over. Everyone puts in their take on her, none of it very welcoming, and one even mentions a time where she couldn’t hold her liquor after hours, an embarrassing moment. You have a laugh, but then you remember. The group chat states “Team 3” which instantly includes you and everyone else on the team…Nadine is on Team 3. And a cold chill runs down your collective spine.
It can be fun but these moments happen and can be avoided with some forethought.