Business Courtesy and E-mail Attachments

Sending of arbitrary e-mail attachments in a business environment without notice is inconsiderate. Why you ask?

Contrary to what popular belief seems to be, you should not just attach anything, at any time, to an e-mail and click Send. Well, you can physically do so but that doesn’t mean you should. You could reformat your hard drive and erase all your files too, but you don’t do you?

On average most e-mail accounts are 10M in size. And since you have no view into the e-mail volume of the person you are sending to, what do you think happens when you send 10M+ of photos or files? You fill up the other person’s e-mail box and cause all subsequent e-mail to bounce, that’s what! Who knows what e-mail they were expecting or opportunities they may have lost due to e-mail bouncing because of a lack of consideration?

For photos, minimize or “resample” them with the graphic software on your computer to say 500-600 pixels in size. Nothing needs to be larger than that for the other side to view. Also keep in mind that the other side may not have Access, Excel or PowerPoint to view the 20M attachment you sent without notice. That’s a double whammy! You’ve filled their inbox with a file they cannot even open.

Another faux pas I see quite often is people thinking because they are working evenings or on weekends that they can send their attachments to others who most certainly are not in the office. With business files, refrain from sending outside of business hours when the other side is most likely not there to receive your files.

Before you send your attachments always ask who you are sending to when would be the best time to do so to ensure they are there to download them and keep their e-mail flowing. They may be out of the office for a day and not there to clear their inbox out.

Just a little courtesy is all it takes.

This isn’t a choice; it’s proper technology use with a dash of courtesy. Minimize and ask first… That’s all you have to do to be viewed as a business onliner who gets it, wants to get it and thinks of others besides themselves. That’s called tech savvy!

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