I don't quite agree with the author of this article. One uses email to attain speed, so if you answering a close colleague, with whom you interact on a daily basis, there is no need for "Dear Henry" or "with regards, Sincerely etc." because that is taken for granted. If you have received an email request to forward some info, all you can say in one line is"Requested info attached herewith or will reach you by tonight" etc. as the case may be. Brevity and to the point response is perfectly ok. Indians love to write essays where a single direct to the point sentence would do.
Re: Need not stretch etiquette too far.....
by SV on Mar 15, 2010 02:55 PM
its always a good practice to write "head and tail" as mentioned in the article...one liner is too haughty and understandable if its coming from a VP to subordinates, who are mostly on their BBs...agree that with a close colleague, you dont have to be formal, but when you have whole world cc on that mail, you better stick to head and tail...
Re: Re: Need not stretch etiquette too far.....
by Globalcrusador on Mar 15, 2010 05:22 PM
Yes, we need to differentiate between formal and informal emails.Informal emails can do away with formalities of headers and tails. In other cases, some formalities need to be observed, when writing to subordinates, strangers, new customers etc.
The biggest missing etiquette in India is lack of ack of your email by the receiving party. It is customary in the US for any recipient to ack, receive and respond to your mail within the same day or within 24 hours unless it is a weekend. If your mail requires that the reci- pient needs time to research data and get back to you, he/she ack's your mails and promises to revert back say within 48 or 72 hours as the case may be. In India, you see no one ack's or responds to your mail within reason- able time. On the contrary, if the other guy is interested in some thing you offer, he does not mind sending you 5 emails per day. The crass selfishness shows all the way. I am not referring to spam mail here but serious mail. We have to go a long way to learn email etiquette here.
Re: The biggest missing etiquette in India is....
by Globalcrusador on Mar 14, 2010 11:45 AM
Likewise, in some of the leading US companies that I worked for, it was considered good etiquette to pick up the receiver on an incoming call within the first 3 rings just to show you care for his/her business. In India, even with some MNCs, you find the phone ring up to 20-30 times before an operator comes on the line with a "what the hell do you want ?" growl !!
Re: Re: The biggest missing etiquette in India is....
by vijay kumar on Mar 17, 2010 11:32 AM
you must have worked for some Ullas nagar sindhi company and claiming to work in US, dont praise west just for the heck of it .
It was good to read a useful article although most of the points were in the "obvious" catagory considering what passess for emails these days it was necessary.
Agreed, too much formality in emails is not really necessary.
But, "Hi Dilip" is also a proper professional salutation? So, should one be writing "Hi Manmohan" or "Hi Pratibha", say, when writing an email to the PM's or President's Office?
And, "Yours sincerely" is insincere?
So pathetic, indeed!
This is bound to happen when every Tom and Dick, Sita and Gita open some soft skills training shop and start preaching etiquette.
