E-mail subject lines June 30, 2008
Posted by Jill (@bonnjill) in Business practices, Fun stuff, Random musings.trackback
I was forwarded a job inquiry last week from a local temp agency looking for a German translator. The first thing I noticed was that the employee who wrote the e-mail hadn’t bothered to include a subject line (the subject line of the forwarded e-mail was: “Fwd: “). The e-mail also didn’t specify what kind of text it was, which didn’t exactly inspire me with confidence or the desire to respond to the e-mail.
In keeping with this topic, today’s Pearls Before Swine comic strip deals with e-mail subject lines. It’s definitely worth a read 🙂 . I’m going to employ this technique the next time I respond to a request that I don’t want to do. Don’t be offended if it’s you 🙂 .
Musings from an overworked translator 
People are becoming extremely sloppy with their emails. What is more, they’ll send you messages without even reading the instructions on your website.
I have an entire page dedicated to the fact that I don’t translate personal documents, such as birth certificates or school transcripts, yet people send their email requests and leave voicemail messages all the same. I have stopped replying to any of those, because I will not waste my time with people who can’t or won’t read clear instructions.