To really dislike people putting read receipts on work emails

[Itissunnysomewhere]

I mean, I always tick to say I won't give one. But I think it's a really aggressive move and really inappropriate.

There shouldn't be an expectation of immediate response to emails

I always tick yes, I've read it and wait at least 3 days to respond.

A (relatively minor) part of my job is to tell defaulting commercial customers to pay up within so many days or we will start legal proceedings against them.

Some documents go by post, but I will also send them to the email address we have for their accounts department, and I want to know whether they've taken the trouble to open the email or not.

Gwenhwyfar - fair enough. I have to say I find it very passively aggressive. Like a sneakier version of high priority, but from a more junior member of staff. It's project manager behaviour. I'm making sure you know I know you got your email.

Well NSS of course I've got your internal email. That's how email works. I'm still not going to do my actions until my clinical priorities are sorted and safe. And as I have a reputation for doing what I say I'm going to do, I don't need chasing because someone else's manager is on their back.

It makes me irrationally angry when I see one, I tick "do not send" whilst making a long multi word swear about them in my head. One day, I dream, I will send the swear to someone. A terminal move, but oh how satisfying.

Has the opposite effect on me.

I work part time, so on my first day in, have a lot of e-mails to read.
I tend to skim through so can delete those "send to all" ones you don't need, and reply very quickly to those that just need s simple one line reply. Then mark unread those I need to spend more time on.
Same with if I am glancing through when I know I have 10 mins before my next meeting.
Anything with a 'read receipt' request doesn't get opened in that first initial run through. It automatically goes to the end of that first session, as I don't want to give the impression I am dealing with their query when I might not be.
So putting that read receipt on has the opposite effect.

I have only ever used it when there has been a history of someone telling me they 'hadn't received' something, or that I didn't send them information, which has only ever been one person I dealt with in the last 15 years or so.

Really annoys me too - I always decline and then take my time in responding as the email is pushed right down to the bottom of my priority queue

I only use read receipts when emailing someone who has a track record of ignoring emails and when it could come down on my head if something isn't done (because the email is not responded to). I'm not paid enough to carry the can for someone else's slackness, that's on them.

And sending a read receipt doesn't mean the sender expects the email to be dealt with straight away, it just means the sender can stop worrying whether their email has been seen by the recipient.

I disable read receipts on every system I have to use. Google "disable read receipts" for whichever mail client you use.

if you have to corral a load of seriously busy people into agreeing anything it must be a nightmare dealing with all you who dont want reminders/reading tags put onto emails. And saying xyz person hasnt responded to my emails wouldnt have held much water in the organisation i worked in...sorry held a big campaign up because i havent heard back from someone Would have just caused a lot of unnecessary stress....though clearly not so much to the recipient