People who put **please read** on emails...

[BeverlyGoldberg]

AIBU to think this is ridiculous, especially in a business environment?

[VelvetSpoon]

I work with people who receive numerous emails a day, and constantly have over 1000 unread emails in their inbox.

If you need them to read something you're sending asap, the only way is to put 'PLEASE READ' in the title. Everything else gets ignored. Have tried IMPORTANT or URGENT to no avail.

[theforceisbroken]

In used to deal with high number of emails on a daily basis and seeing something like that in the heading would draw my eye immediately, rather than allowing a potentially important email ending up in my 'emails to sort' folder. It was often most helpful for urgent internal emails as I tended to prioritise things coming in from clients.

So yes, YABU, particularly in a business environment.

[theforceisbroken]

'I', not 'In', obviously!

[PatricianOfAnkhMorpork]

YANBU - I hate it. I get why some people do it (apart from the twats who do it on every email) but it gives me the rage and will mean that I won't read it for hours. If its that bloody urgent then ring me!

[ItsAllGoingToBeFine]

Surely it is more constructive to have a descriptive subject that conveys the urgency? I would assume "please read" = spam, it usually is...

[Throwingshadeagain]

YABU

I often put this on emails to my staff if vitally important. We all get dozens of emails a day so things get missed. 'Please read' is the most direct way of saying it. As pp says 'urgent' seems to be invisible to most people.

[RockUnit]

YANBU

[NotCitrus]

I'd assume 'please read' was a fundraising attempt or spam.
If it's really urgent, "IMMEDIATE" or "TODAY" and the red exclamation mark, and if vital, then the subject in red.
And then phone them/their colleagues to get them to actually do something.

[Camelandmaus]

I work abroad in the Middle East and getting staff to read emails at all, let alone actually follow the instructions in them, is nigh on impossible (I've put read receipts on at times and if 20% of the department actually open them you're lucky) - although to be fair I'm the only one in a department of 96 whose first language is English

I really needed one particular set of instructions to be read and followed so I got sneaky (and this will only work in limited, one off circumstances) and the title of the email was "FREE CAKE!" - funnily enough I got an 80+% read email rate and the instructions were actually followed! (And yes I did provide cake, even making tiramisu for one of the guys who requested it!)

Thankfully by then the department (95% male) were more or less used to me and my weird British ways!

Ok. I've finally put my first post onto MN after months of lurking!

[BlueCheeseandcrackers]

Camel I like your tactics!!

[AyeAmarok]

When you get over 100 emails a da,then it's quite useful to have one that is really important flagged as such.

However, if I read it and it was just nonsense that wasn't urgent, I'd probably not reply and would never read an email marked as PLEASE READ from that person again. So it needs to be used sparingly.

Same as read receipts. If it's something that's not important, I refuse to send the read receipt and sometimes I drop it to the bottom of my to-do list as a matter of principle.

[daisymoo2]

YABU. I get >100 emails every day. It is useful to have that in the heading as I know I must read it whearas some of the others are probably just cc'ing me to keep me in the loop. Must not be overused though.