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Original poster

Have you ever had 'cc' in an email used 'against you' at work?

158 replies

chomalungma · 26/10/2019 10:49

Email is great. A valuable business tool. But I do hate it when conversations you have with it suddenly don't become 'private'.

Obviously nothing in email is secret. It's incredibly easy to reply to people, cc a few others into it and before you know it. lots of people can see what's been written. In the 'old days', that wouldn't have happened as much.

As an example, there is something on my 'to do' list - but it is a low priority. The manager who wants me to do the task has emailed me about when it will be done - and 'cc'd' my manager into it. It wouldn't have hurt to simply email me - rather than 'cc' my manager in . I don't have a particularly good relationship with my manager at the moment.

I can think of other 'email' chains - where people have been 'cc'd' in - yet really they don't need to know. Incidents could have been resolved with simple talking to people - or just directly involving people in emails - rather than people just getting one side of a story.

Maybe I am being a bit sensitive - but I do think that sometimes 'cc' in an email chain is used against people.

OP posts:
FrangipaniBlue · 26/10/2019 17:48

By CC'ing your manager at this stage, they are making your manager additionally aware of the requirement so that your workload and priorities can be managed appropriately.

heaven forbid the OP is a big girl who can manage her own workload and raise any issues with management herself.

Micro managing much Confused

converseandjeans · 26/10/2019 18:04

bcc is worse!

SpiderCharlotte · 26/10/2019 18:27

Are you in a management position @saltandvinegararethebest? To me, it means that people don't trust my staff.

Sarcelle · 26/10/2019 18:33

Unfortunately I work with a lot of CFs, so you have to do it to cover your back. If I worked somewhere with less childish and more professional individuals it would not be a necessity.

saltandvinegararethebest · 26/10/2019 18:44

@SpiderCharlotte

No. Maybe I am naive. I took it as management making sure that projects from our dept were completed successfully and that everything was distributed fairly.

notacooldad · 26/10/2019 18:47

I haven't got a problem with it in our team.
We work shifts and often have four consecutive days off or work weekends and evenings.
A lot of our work is around safeguarding young people and dealing with famili. We copy the key worker about anything significant about a case if anything crops up. We will include the manager and deputy as a cc so they are kept in the loop and have up to date info. Similarly a colleague will cc the whole team about an issue so we know what's going on, especially if they are going to be off on restdays or annual leave.

The thing that bugs me is when a message has gone out to every on and some one replies ' read' to everyone on the list! I don't care if you have read it or not!

perkypink · 26/10/2019 18:53

I tell my staff that I don't care who CC's or BCC's me into emails. I will ALWAYS ALWAYS have there back and I don't want anyone to ever feel intimidated by me being included on emails. If there is a problem we will have a private chat between ourselves and I will advise them on how to proceed but, they will never have to worry about a bollocking from me. Nor will I ever let them down in front of external clients when they're acting like wankers. I'll always protect them.

ShiningInTheDark · 26/10/2019 20:39

@perkypink what about your staff acting like wankers - what do you do then?

safariboot · 26/10/2019 20:55

I have no objection if someone, emailing me, ccs in one or more of the management. Then again I'm in a role where I largely manage my own workload and prioritise tasks appropriately, in a company small enough that I know just about everyone.

As much as anything else, the people cced in are probably the people who need/want to know when the job's done.

SpiderCharlotte · 26/10/2019 22:48

@saltandvinegararethebest to be fair, it should be like that, but there are so many who seem to think that if they cc you in it'll make what they want happen faster, when in reality it'll be one of hundreds of things that need doing. I trust my team 100% and they know I'll back them up. They also know that I'm on it so of they aren't I'd want to know why. They're a great bunch though.

Cherrysoup · 27/10/2019 00:11

A colleague emails the team and our line manager gets cc’d in to every message, no matter how minor. He told me he was going to tell her to stop. Stupid thing is, she did this with our last line manager, who also told her to stop. I’ve made a big fuss of clicking ‘Reply all’ recently because it looked like she was trying to show me up ‘Could you do.... by tomorrow’ etc so I replied all reminding her I’d already done it last week. 😂 Duh.

She recently cc’d someone in on an email that dropped me in deep shit. I admit I went mad at her. Totally unnecessary.

bellabolla · 27/10/2019 00:16

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

starfishmummy · 27/10/2019 00:19

I think in the OP, YAB a tad U. As I read it the manager who wants you to do the work is not your direct manager - copying your direct manager in to any correspondence about the task would be the norm where I work.

saltandvinegararethebest · 27/10/2019 15:07

@Cherrysoup

'She recently cc’d someone in on an email that dropped me in deep shit. I admit I went mad at her. Totally unnecessary'

You sound like a bully.

SuperMeerkat · 27/10/2019 15:28

@chomalungma God I despise that when people ‘CC’ in my manager regarding something that all they needed to do was talk to me. It smacks of them wanting to be a goody two shoes and instantly makes me lose respect for them.

LadyBrienne · 27/10/2019 15:44

Sometimes to cc a manager is a shot across the bow as pp said

However it can also be used so that your manager is aware of workload request and potentially change your priorities to get the job done, or so manager can manage requesters expectations and say "actually that's not going to get done due to x y and z"

It's not always bad intent

Things go much better when everyone assumes good intent until proof to the contrary

Cherrysoup · 27/10/2019 17:48

You sound like a bully.

What utter shite, @saltandvinegararethebest. You know NOTHING of the circumstances, which would be very outing if I put any more detail. I am the one being bullied, not her. Don’t talk shit about what you don’t know. She has very deliberately and on several occasions tried to make out that I haven’t done basic stuff which I had done a week previously. I finally blew up and she has apologised-in writing, because she knows it was wrong of her.

Ariela · 27/10/2019 18:11

If the delivery date is Jan 2020, I'd email back and say it is due by Jan 2020 and question if the priority has now changed, if so could you please be updated (and cc the manager)

Original poster
chomalungma · 27/10/2019 19:25

f the delivery date is Jan 2020, I'd email back and say it is due by Jan 2020 and question if the priority has now changed, if so could you please be updated

I just emailed back and said what I was doing at the moment - she knew some things I was doing - but not the most important thing which is on right now - and explained how far along I was with her project.

OP posts:
saltandvinegararethebest · 27/10/2019 22:54

@Cherrysoup

Unnecessary. Of course, we can't know the exact details. We can only go on what you say here.

MintyMabel · 27/10/2019 23:31

I sometimes did it at
my last place because I worked remote from the team and needed their manager to know they had work to do for me.

I also do it if I have repeatedly asked for something that someone isn't producing, and I need their manager to step in. That's only when dealing with an external contact though and only if not having the info is putting me in a difficult position.

At my new place, the directors like to be kept informed so I copy them in on most stuff when dealing with their team.

If someone is doing it and there isn't a problem, why would you be bothered if they were copied in?

Sparklfairy · 27/10/2019 23:35

I knew someone high up in a company who would send internal emails round and basically shit stir. Get gossip from other people and bcc the gossiped about person in Shock it was pretty shocking.

Cherrysoup · 28/10/2019 10:22

Unnecessary. Of course, we can't know the exact details. We can only go on what you say here.

Also unnecessary to call someone a bully when the reverse is true and you don’t know the whole situation, no, I’m not about to out myself with all the detail.

SeaViewBliss · 28/10/2019 10:31

My organisation has recently had a big campaign on appropriate use of CC. The basic message is, if you are going to CC someone, you have to state why.

It is a really good way of making sure people are thinking twice before CCing someone in and has stopped a lot of the arse licking, dropping people in it shit that was going on before.

It obviously can't be completely enforced but most managers are now pretty good at challenging it and I know they are sending 'why have you copied me in- do you need me to do something' type messages.

saltandvinegararethebest · 29/10/2019 18:50

@Cherrysoup

I said you sound like a bully based on the information you gave. You took your temper out on someone at work instead of dealing with the situation professionally. If someone else had posted your comment, do you not think that this would be a fair assumption? I am not interested in the details, just making a judgement based on your reaction, which I am entitled to do.