Email attachments: the lazy option

What's triggered this blog post? An inbox full of pdfs, when I was craving a quick yes/no answer.

It's that knee-jerk thing that organisations do - they attach a random pdf or web link that may or may not have the right answers. Instead of taking a few minutes to craft a short, tailored reply.

If you're going to send someone a chunky pdf, make sure you tell 'em which page and which paragraph to look at.

Better still, copy out the relevant bits and paste 'em into the main body of an email.

10,000 spoons

Some people think they're doing you a favour by sending shedloads of background, when all you want is a few short bullets.

'It's like 10,000 spoons when all you need is a knife' goes the Alanis Morissette song 'Ironic'. (Link goes to YouTube video.)

Too big

And are you sure the person at the other end will be able to open your attachment? I recently worked for an organisation that blocked attachments over a couple of megabytes.