Friday's Unscientific Poll: Read receipts

[nanila]

Poll #23032 Read receipts

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: Just the Poll Creator, participants: 48

When I receive a request for a read receipt on an email message, I

Ignore it
40 (83.3%)

Send it
8 (16.7%)

Well. Not so much opinions as An Opinion, which is that I loathe them. I have never ever sent one. To me an email message is like a paper letter in this way. Once I have sent it, it's up to the recipient when and if they read it and choose to respond.

Comments

[hilarita]

It depends. I will usually ignore it, unless it's someone I want to acknowledge in some way that doesn't involve replying to the mail.

[bryangb]

That's pretty much my thinking too - if my reply would just have said "thanks for the email", allowing the receipt saves me typing.

[pbristow]

I wasn't aware sending the receipts was optional! Back when I was supporting an email program (this is over 22 years ago, mind) it was automatically triggered (if it had been requested) when you opened the email. =:oo

[azurelunatic]

I will read the email first, then decide whether and when. If it's from a friendly, usually send, sometimes wait so it doesn't look like I read it immediately. I will choose the time strategically with some senders.

[perennialanna]

Send with a sigh.

Once in a blue moon I demand a read receipt myself. It's the stage after cc-ing the recipient's line manager.

[shirou]

I ignore them, but I respond to emails at my leisure and will sometimes take days to respond to a simple text message. I readily admit I can be a horrible communicator, although I do think it has served me well at work that I reserve time to focus on my projects and limit the amount of time that gets sucked into internal communications.

[forthwritten]

I have requested a read receipt exactly once, and I consider it to be an act of war on a level just (but only just) below firebombing the recipient's desk.

[askygoneonfire]

YES

[nanila]

AGREE

(Also we can probably use the passion level of the responses to easily spot the academics/those in academic-related posts on the thread)

[omnipotent]

I never send them. I think they’re the ultimate level of pettiness.

[recessional]

I can imagine circumstances wherein read receipts would be neutral or even significantly useful, depending on what email communication is being used for, what other methods of communication are available, what the issue is, how urgent it genuinely is, how time-sensitive it is, and what other factors are involved.

It's highly contextual.

[fred_mouse]

I ignore them, with the caveat if they are coming from the PA of any of the big bosses, particularly the one who is amazingly competent, I assume that they are actually important and send them.

This is because outside those use cases, I've seen some amazingly petty uses of read receipts, and I'm not interested in supporting that kind of drama.

[antisoppist]

I ignore them but I reply to the email instead, so I suppose in that sense they are working! I just think saying "I have read your message but am not replying to it" is rude so it makes me reply and then resent it.

It would be different if I got it on emails that don't demand a reply though. If my clients send them it's because they've got an urgent job and want to know if I am there to do it now this minute. It's only just occurred to me that I could ignore it and pretend I am out.

[liseuse]

I ignore them 99% of the time. If they are coming from someone sending an email on behalf of One Of Our Big Important People and I don't have time to respond to the email immediately I might send one, but usually I try to set some time aside to just respond to the email - even if the response is "I don't know/I don't have this but I'm working on it" because I don't want their lives to be harder than they have to be.

Read receipts just don't work with how I approach my work email. Sure, I read that email at 8:25am but that's because I was doing email triage. I'm not going to reply to it until I've had more coffee and worked out what to respond with/if it's even my job to respond to it.

[word_geek]

Exactly this. And I have one person I work with who appears to have set her email to always send a read receipt (though, thinking about it, maybe she has now switched that off). But it meant she got multiple emails from me, probably. One when I triaged it, and then tagged it unread and filed it in Actions, another when I actually replied to it. And if I picked up from the mailbox, she might have had a third when the triage person for the shared box told her we'd get to her edit in $time. So three emails telling her someone read it, two of them alongside Actual Responses.

H

[liseuse]

Thankfully very few people in my workplace bother with them, which is partly because our IT people asked people to not use them as a blanket technique because they were snarling up the helpdesk ticket system (auto-replies also do this, sighhh). But some external people do and look, the quote I requested is probably important to me, but I'm still not sending you a read receipt to prove that I opened/read it.

Cavil on my vote

[ed_rex]

I voted Ignore it, but in truth I very seldom get them. Usually I ignore but it happens, but will consider the read receipt if it's from someone I know. Mind you, if it's someone I know, I'll probably just answer the email.

[silveradept]

I have occasionally sent them, when they came from people it would be potentially an issue not to have read their email, or if it is something that I want the sender to know I have seen, even if there isn't a reply, but thankfully, they're basically unused at my place of with, and I think that's a good thing.

[unhingedforest]

It depends - on work emails if it's something important/urgent that I need to know and action immediately, I will send it. It just saves time with the sender not needing to contact me later to ask if I received it.

Otherwise? Ignore.

[askygoneonfire]

I find it deeply passive aggressive to request read receipts. I have never sent one - and regard it as a form of surveillance which must be resisted at all costs....vive la revolution!

[bitterlawngnome]

For me it depends whether the person is using it thoughtfully (maybe) or just blanket demanding it on every email (hell no).

[nanila]

I worked very briefly with someone who put them on every email. I never sent one back. And even after being told quite firmly by our line manager to stop....they persisted. *sigh*

[bitterlawngnome]

Well. I mean, I suppose when the alternative is the person phoning me to say ... did you get my email? I'll take the notif.

[emelbe]

I will not only ignore it but I use a preview pane so if it's something I don't need to respond to and if I'm feeling petty, I'll delete it which will trigger a "deleted unread" message to the sender.

Go ahead. Call me on it.

[nanila]

Oooooh, harsh. However. I would have loved to have done that to the most recent instance of read receipt request message I received, since it was so impolite, so demanding, and so totally outside my remit. >:E