Electronic Civility

You never know quite what you’re going to get when you put your business online and invite queries from anyone who happens to stumble across your site. It was almost exactly two years ago that I started planning Sundragon. I published the site with a sense of excitement tempered with trepidation. The clients would come, I was sure, but a certain number of potential clients would prove to be rude, demanding, or downright crazy. I could only hope the reasonable clients would outnumber the crazy … er, the unreasonable ones.

So far I’ve been pleasantly surprised. I’ve had the pleasure of working with some pretty terrific people who appreciate my work (unlike my last “real” employer) and pay me on time. I’ve also had the displeasure of receiving some rude e-mails that have annoyed me mightily.

Some people like to start off by making demands. No “Dear editor,” no introduction, and usually no explanation of what they actually want. Like this one: “I don’t like that there’s no phone number on your website. Call me.” Yeah, right. Some people don’t even bother to write an actual e-mail. Instead, they stick a question in the subject line, like this: “Where’s your office?” Several people have asked me just one question: “What does Sundragon mean?” That one I don’t really mind; in fact, I’m quite happy to answer that question (or pretty much any question) as long as there are some other words resembling “hello” and “thank you” mixed in there somewhere. I also enjoy it when people put their names on their e-mails, but that, apparently, is entirely too much to expect.

Maybe I’m clinging to some old-fashioned and unrealistic ideals, but I really don’t think a little basic civility in an e-mail is too much to ask for. It’s one thing to send a short e-mail consisting of only one question—no hello, no good-bye, no name—to a friend, but the rules are different when you’re contacting someone for the first time. What you say and how you say it will give the recipient their first (and maybe only) impression of you, and saying something like “I don’t understand your prices. Please reply,” with no greeting and no name, sounds pretty dang rude to me. Perhaps it’s not meant to be rude, but still.… Why start off that way? Are we really too busy to say hello to each other and to thank someone for taking the time to answer our questions?