Carbon Copy
What does the word Carbon Copy mean to you? Most of us immediately think of ‘CC’ - as in CC’ing someone on an email - bingo. So why is this so hard to remember this when you actually respond to an email?
Carbon Copy is actually a term referring to a piece of carbon paper that is placed between two pieces of paper to create a copy from one sheet on to another (think dry cleaner receipts). This was adopted in email because you are actually copying someone with the exact same information that is provided to the primary receiver.
With that said, I see countless times per day where Carbon Copying (CC) is not properly used. The number one offender of this is simply forgetting to CC someone. Here are a few examples of violations:
1. Forgetting - Let’s say that you are sent an email and asked for some information, but there are 2 other people CC’d on the email. 99.9(repeating 9)% of the time you should ‘Reply All’ in order to CC the same folks on your response. There are very few situations where you should not. When you do not include others this results in miss-communication. Most of the time, people are CC’d on emails because they also need this information.
2. Overuse - This happens when someone writes an email that is very specific to 1 or 2 people, but they have CC’d 20 people. What is the purpose of this? Generally when this happens I call or write a quick email to the original sender to understand if a response to all is necessary before spamming the world.
3. Passive Aggressive - This happens when someone writes an email with something like, “I have yet to hear from you on this, can you please provide an update” and also CC’s your boss. Although this is semi-immature it is often times necessary to get certain people to respond. My caution here is to use within reason. Do not abuse the power. If you are ever confronted with this situation handle the email immediately or simply call the person and resolve the issue.
In short, don’t forget about that special ‘Reply to All’ button. What are some of your pet peeves regarding CC’ing?
On the Passive Agressive point - copying a person’s boss to get a response is only acceptable if you have spoken (over the phone or in person) to the person first, in one last attempt to get the answer. If you still can’t get your answer at that point, let the person know that you will be escalating to their boss, only at which point you may CC the boss. This is the only way this particular CC should be used. Warning: you will not make friends, but you could make bigger enemies by CC’ing out of the blue.