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Written by Don Mayhew, MCT
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Tuesday, 02 October 2007 |
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Author Bonnie Hearn Hill was exchanging ideas via e-mail this summer with a friend writing a psychological thriller. The story involved a character's murder.
"I think you need to kill him sooner, right off the bat," Hill, of Fresno, Calif., wrote. The friend didn't reply.
She wrote again, supplying details about where and when the murder might take place. No response.
She tried again: "Let's discuss this murder of yours over coffee." Still, nothing.
Finally, Hill called her friend, who said he hadn't received any of her e-mails - and by the way, uses his middle initial in his e-mail address. She'd been sending her homicidal messages to a stranger with a similar name.
Oops.
We rely so heavily on e-mail to communicate that it's only a matter of time before most of us goof. The potential for unintended consequences is almost infinite.
Why? We like to gossip. We fall into routines without thinking. Worst of all, our fingers sometimes move faster than our brains. So we send the wrong message to the wrong person, send to a boss an unpolished e-mail instead of saving it or hit "reply all" instead of "reply."
In the blink of an eye, more people than the entire population of Estonia know about your gout.
How do you fix it? Lisa Benenson, editor-in-chief of Hallmark Magazine, says there are a couple of ironclad rules. (The magazine's September-October issue explored this subject.)
"Be prepared to own up to it if you mess up," she says, and do so in person or on the phone, not simply by sending another e-mail.
Some people are so embarrassed about making such a mistake that they decide to ignore it and hope the recipients will do the same. Bad move.
"You are going to have to come away from your computer eventually," Benenson says. "If you want to salvage the relationship, it's really no different than if you had made the mistake in person. In person, you're just called upon to fix it faster."
Beyond that, what you should do depends on the scenario:
You hit "reply all" instead of "reply." "If you haven't said anything obnoxious, you're fine," Benenson says.
But since a lot of gossip happens on e-mail, this mistake can be devastating. If you've insulted someone, "you've got to face the music," she says.
If you realize your mistake immediately, send another e-mail to apologize. Start fresh, with a brand new e-mail, not a copy of the old one.
"You don't want to send it with your unkind observation" repeated, Benenson says.
Besides an apology, the message should say that you will call or come by in person, depending on whether the person is in the next cubicle or the next town.
Then follow through and do what you said you would. Explain yourself, then beg for forgiveness. Bonus points for sending an old-fashioned, handwritten note of apology afterwards.
In a hurry, you write a terse message that's misinterpreted. D. James Smith, Fresno poet and author of "The Boys of the San Joaquin" young adult series, was e-mailing two editors on two different projects when he slipped and used the casual tone he often did with one while writing the other.
The second editor felt he was being taken to task and bristled at the idea that he needed direction. Smith hadn't intended that at all.
"You're not going to fix it with e-mail, so pick up the phone," Benenson says. Start by saying you're sorry, explain how you really feel, then suggest starting fresh.
That's pretty much what Smith did. He's since taken extra care to be polite and pleasant when exchanging e-mails with anyone with whom he's not familiar.
"The interpretation of the e-mail is really in the mind of the recipient," Benenson says. "You can't control how they're going to read your e-mail."
You send instead of save an e-mail that isn't ready. If you can quickly complete it as you'd hoped to send it, do so and put in the subject line "correct version," so the recipients know which one to keep.
At the top, ask them to keep this version and briefly explain that you sent the earlier message too quickly.
If the e-mail is a project that will take another day or two to prepare the way you want it, send a brief message in the meantime acknowledging the mistake and asking the recipients to delete it.
"The best thing is to fix it fast and get the right version to them," Benenson says.
A glitch sends an e-mail repeatedly to your address list. This is a tough one. The most important thing is to stop the problem as quickly as possible. But in the meantime, Benenson says, "Unless it's going to start going 97 times, send a note saying, `I am so sorry you're getting these repeated e-mails. It's a problem on my end. We're working to fix it.'"
You inadvertently attach a personal file and send it to a co-worker. Unless you want everyone in the office to know how much credit card debt you have (or what it is you're doing about that gout), you stand up, walk over to the colleague and ask politely if he or she will delete it.
"You stand there and watch them delete it, and you ask them to empty their trash," Benenson says. "If you can't do that, this is a little sneaky, but I think (there's) justification for this: You can say to them that it might have a virus, and they probably shouldn't open it.
"Who's going to take a chance with a virus?"
You ask a friend not to forward any more inspirational hooey, and she's offended. The best explanation is that your work e-mailbox has a limited amount of space, and that your boss doesn't want you reading a lot of personal e-mails in the office anyway.
Whatever you say, make it something "that spares their feelings but allows you to get off the receiving end," Benenson says. "There's a little balance on either side here. Be careful what you send to people. They may or may not think these things are as funny as you do."
You inadvertently e-mail a stranger. Hill says she "really expected police" to knock on her door after sending her errant messages about murder to someone she'd never met.
After getting off the phone with her friend, she apologized to the other man with an e-mail and explained that she had been discussing a fictional murder.
Benenson says Hill did exactly the right thing. But the author never heard back from the guy.
"Can't say that I blame him," she says. "He must've thought I was either murderous or crazy." | Only registered users can write comments.
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