Reply All Is a Choice, and You Made It

Thanks for your note, Greg, and thanks to the forty-two other people who now know you can make it on Thursday.

Reply all is the only workplace tool that lets one person interrupt a whole floor by accident. Then comes the second wave: somebody replies to everyone asking to be removed from the list. Then a third person replies to everyone asking everyone to stop replying to everyone. By lunch the thread has its own weather.

A short test before you click

• Does every single person on this thread need this sentence?
• Would you say it out loud in a full elevator?
• Is your message thanks?

If the answer to the last one is yes, you have our gratitude, and you may keep it to yourself.

When it is fine

We are not monsters. If you are sharing a real decision, a correction or a change of room, go right ahead. Everybody needs that. Nobody needs your thumbs up.

We put the principle on a mug so you can raise it silently during the next all-hands.