The use of the “reply all” function on emails has long bothered me. I’m sure when the makers of email came up with the “reply all” function, it had good intentions. When you have information that you want to share not only with the sender of the email, but also with the other recipients, it’s great to be able to just push one button and everyone gets your response.

But’s it’s overused. And misused. And just used too often.

Here’s an example. Friend “Jim” (Names will be changed to protect the innocent and moronic) sends an email out to all of his friends asking if anyone is interested in going out for wings on some given Thursday.

Two things with this. One, if you don’t want to go, then no reply is needed. I doubt Jim is sitting at home saying, “ohh… I wonder if Sara is going to go or not.” No. It’s a general email and whoever is in is in. If Jim was really concerned about Sara going, he’d probably ask her directly.

Secondly, if you decide that you are going to reply, I’m willing to give you the benefit of the doubt and use the reply all function at this time. Perhaps Connie saying she’s going will influence Don to go because Don secretly has a thing for Connie. Or you could see that Dripp is going and that might make you say “no way I am going!” But the part that gets me is the people that reply all constantly after that. Say Jes says, “I can’t make it, I have a spa appointment.” There’s no reason for Ben to reply to all and say, “yeah, you need it!” A lot of times, everyone doesn’t know everyone else on the “reply all” list. So, it’s annoying when Ben and Jes have this bantering going back and forth and I’m stuck in a private conversation with two people that I don’t know.

I wondered if this annoyance was just for me; not surprisingly, other people are bothered by people misusing “reply all.”

First let me begin by discussing the annoying and inappropriate use of the “reply to all” button. This button is a very powerful one and one that should be used judiciously. I honestly think that anytime you hit the “reply to all” button there should be a secondary warning like “Are you sure you want to reply to ALL?” The problem is that there seems to be a group of very clueless individuals who can’t seem to find the simple “reply” button. Like when an email goes out to all employees announcing something like “There will be a quarterly business update next Wednesday at 1:00 PM” and invariably one or more peons reply to all with some sort of useless message like “Thanks Jim see you at 1:00″. Seriously, Jim doesn’t care and I care even less than Jim so quit cluttering my inbox and get back to work. Another example of the inappropriate use of the “reply to all” button happened a while ago when I invited a bunch of people from work over to my place for a get together. I invited about 25 or so people via email. In the email I gave details about date and time and other relevant information. I sarcastically mentioned that the event would “kick off around 4:00PM with pony rides and a marching band”. A number of people replied to me individually but one unfortunate soul replied to all and said “Oh, pony rides - sounds like fun! Can I be the first in line? See everyone Saturday!” Needless to say I instantly remembered why she annoyed me and why I didn’t want to invite her in the first place. I didn’t reply to her email since I didn’t think there was much point. One of my colleagues however wasn’t able to resist and replied “Yes, you can be first in line. Sincerely, Pony.”

Does this annoy anyone else, or am I being petty?