To hate it when people CC managers into emails for no reason?

[CCMeNot]

I find it so passive-aggressive when someone copies a manager into an email thread when it’s completely unnecessary. If we’re having a straightforward discussion or resolving a minor issue, why escalate it by looping in management?

It feels like a power play - a way of signalling something without saying it outright or trying to cover themselves unnecessarily. To me, it undermines trust and open communication.

AIBU to think this kind of behaviour is petty and unprofessional or is it just standard office politics I need to get over?

So many victims on here. Perhaps stop and think whether you LM needs to know of the issue - reading a brief email will waste less time than you saving it up for a briefing. And it may be for mentoring, developing the cc’ing person. Let then deal with those doing it too ardently. And if you do your job, in a timely fashion, communicating as need be, why gripe?

I'm a sole trader but have contracts with the council. The finance woman messes up alllllll the damn time. The only time she copies her manager in is when she's beaten a deadline, like she wants a medal for doing it right once. I've started copying them in everytime I tell her she's messed up now.

I had a similar experience.

Emails very negative/moaning and misinterpreting things, and then copying in various managers. So I replied factually and concisely, to each point she made, and copied in all the managers that she had done (previously I would just reply to her). She never did it again.

Then you have tried to resolve the issue with 'me'. That's OK if you've genuinely emailed a few times and presumably tried to call. Going to the manager should be last resort.

Some people micromanage and some can't delegate. Obviously, I can't know in your situation if the boss is controlling or not.

Also, the OP's issue isn't about managers who ask to be cc'ed, but people who do it unprompted when emailing her.

The managers aren't even reading the emails because they know they're not relevant.

Don't think I've ever done it for no reason.

I've done it when

• She needs to know what is going on in terms of tasks and dates
• Stuff not impacting her now but potentially important down the road
• I trust the correspondent less than I could throw them.

Mine would copy in the manager for stuff like:

"Please can you do xyz"
"Have you seen XYZ persons file?"
"I'm doing this thing that you once used to do, please can you tell me how to do it? and/or can you send me the guide for doing the thing"

Like, jesus woman, WTF is your problem trying to get me to look bad at any chance you can.

I agree with this.

I've worked in two very large, fast paced organisations and this is fairly standard practise to ensure people are kept in the loop.

As a manger myself, I would rather be cc'd into email conversations so I can keep track of what's going on and how things are progressing than having endless meetings to be updated on something that I could have read in 5 minutes.

She’s making herself look bad then, not you. Just ignore and only hit reply to her.

My whole organisation does it as standard. We all work on different projects all the time. Some people work part time. People go on annual leave or off sick. People leave from time to time. Having others copied into emails means we have an easy record of what was done when and it makes it a whole lot easier to find documents and pick up work. It’s very rarely to do with individuals.

So who manages their inbox when they're on leave?

I cc a person's line manager for the ones that usually ignore my emails. I then a an email chain to show when they haven't done their work, and their manager knows they have been asked on more than one occasion.

Can't speak for that PP, but in my place:

• If it's a BAU team who deal with repeating time critical tasks there will be a team DL as well
• For anything not BAU that needs to keep moving, the employee will most likely have been cc-ing appropriate people in anyway, but if not they'll send a handover update and cc them in. As a project/strategy person most of my work falls into this bucket
• The OOO message will give a default contact for anything else that can't wait

Above a certain level, people usually check their emails on leave anyway. (I don't like that, I think people who are covering need to know they are empowered to cover, not be waiting just in case somene on leave pops up with a reply. I tell my team to assume I won't be checking. If there is a genuine Ooo really needs to be involved emergency my immediate team know they can call me ).

My work waits for me to come back, like a gift

Not in my experience. I would do it all time as my staff with me. Perhaps you’re working for crap managers who can’t manage their own workload?

They put an out of office on saying they're in leave and when they're back and giving my email address as an alternative contact if it needs dealing with before then... if someone ignores that then that's their problem.

This.
It just shows that they're a bit of a trouble maker, escalate if you haven't had a response within 24 hours, otherwise don't be a dick unless it is company practice.

It's pretty common for managers to have a high workload and to receive a lot of irrelevant emails. It doesn't make them crap.

I CC my manager because we work on the same projects and cover for each other. He CCs me. I don't CC other people's managers unless its to their advantage / to give the work they are doing for us visability.

I had this with a coworker who’d copy in our project lead (same seniority as me) completely unnecessarily. No incompetence by my team. It was a way to say I want this done now so I’ll copy in as many people as I can, to get what I want now (not in line with project timelines). Demanding bullshit. I finally had enough and replied ‘is this an action/note for me or project lead? Wouldn’t want to duplicate work’ Project Lead replied ‘Unclear Chlamp, it sits with your team so not sure why I’m copied?’ (No cahoots at all). Annoying co-worker stopped doing it after that.

Don’t be the demanding passive aggressive coworker.

Sometimes my team will tell me in a catch-up about a work-related issue they’re having with a client or a colleague where they’re struggling to get buy-in for a policy or are being stonewalled. I’ll suggest a course of action and say ‘feel free to cc me when you email them next time’ so they know I’ll step in if the client gets nasty/colleague refuses to do the necessary. It’s not micromanaging or failure to delegate, it’s providing back-up in tricky situations.

It's because so many people are not in to receive their delivery