Co-workers who 'cc' bosses into emails with simple requests

Nobby – Member
@ 2tyred – do you work with Kryton57?

VGLOL!! (Very genuine LOL) 😀

I only CC in bosses if I feel I need visibility re the task/update I’m mailing about. I.e. someone isn’t doing what they should be doing or someone higher up needs to make a call on whatever is at hand. Simples.

Sometimes its easier to do this than say to peers

Look: you have a history of non or poor delivery in this area, this is important

I know which I do 🙂

Ignore it, complete the request, and move on.

Person is probably just trying to get his/her ‘name in the frame’ (is it review time at work possibly?). Or possibly like peolpe have said, just being asked by the boss to do something.

I’d have a quick chat with your boss verbally to check it’s okay to the work if you need to assign the time to some sort of budget key. Ask if they want to be kept in the loop and just reply to all back in a nice manner.

Personally I think you’re getting too wound up about something little, but if you don’t copy in their boss you run the risk of springing the ‘trap’ if there is one. Boss A – “Did 2tyred do that job I asked you to sort out?”, Underling “No I don’t think so, but let me look proactive and chase it up for you bossman. Oh, and can I have that 10% payrise this year?”….

toxicsoks – Member
Nobby – Member
@ 2tyred – do you work with Kryton57?

VGLOL!! (Very genuine LOL)

🙂 You might laugh, but in the scaenrio I descrined the other day, this has worked in my favor. Said person sent me and email cc’d to his boss and my boss basically saying “I need you to tell me how to do my own job, urgently”

😯

Here’s my ill informed opinion

He is either a knob, and your boss will agree that he is a knob for CC’ing said boss.

Or said boss requested the CC (He may also be a knob)

Ha found out what CC means = carbon copy, obviously the one who is sending CC to your boss as well as you has few freinds, is insecure and needs to show others just what he is doing or done.Sad muppet he must be.

If he was working for me his name would imediately go to the top of the prat list.

Ha found out what CC means = carbon copy, obviously the one who is sending CC to your boss as well as you has few freinds, is insecure and needs to show others just what he is doing or done.Sad muppet he must be.

If he was working for me his name would imediately go to the top of the prat list.

IME, CC’s are used;

a) to justify to colleagues / boss some work is being done

b) as a passive agressive move to tell YOUR boss I’ve asked his staff member to do something.

Generally I’d say both are a sign of insecurity and a lack of confidence, however depending on the scenario, people can use this as evidence that they have done as they’ve been asked (by cc’ing thier own boss)or that they can’t do something becuase the person, not under thier authority says no (maybe legitamately) therefore forcing the person to want evidential data to support thier claim they couldn’t progress due to someone else’s agenda.

IME, CC’s are used;
a) to justify to colleagues / boss some work is being done
b) as a passive agressive move to tell YOUR boss I’ve asked his staff member to do something.

You should stop using them like that, then. 😉

Don’t let it annoy you just do it back.

For instance, i get emails that start with my name only or some without any adress whatsoever but straight in to the text.

I always, always make sure I return the email in exactly the same style as the original.

Polite gets polite reply and vice-versa – simple.

how about pick up the phone or….this is really a bit left field but…. walk over and ‘talk’ to the person

how about….this is really a bit left field but….you read the post?

the colleague is located in a different city

😆

gah all you duffers got me confused with the tales of people emailing each other sat it in the same room

pick up the phone, call them and wee down it

You’re over reacting. Answer all enquiries in person.

My rule is the more people they cc in, the less likely it is to jump the queue.

This is well known in my project team now, so they tow the line.

tldr – chill, it could be innocent enough. The boss may have asked to be in CC or the boss needed to be aware.

CC is for info only, To: is for action or people directly involved.

i have worked, for a short time, a boss who wanted every email cc’ed to him.

Now emails get cc’ed if it contains something useful for them to be aware of, whether or not they asked, when they have explicitly asked to be copied in, and finally when asking nicely has failed to get something done, i will to cover my back cc the relevant managers in and leave it to them to deal with the politics.

Do reply all asking the douche bag how your glad he has his drinking under control, then ask he brings his boyfriend round for tea

there’s a guy at our place who does this…

if he wants you to do something he emails you directly.

if you don’t reply within an hour he then cc’s in your boss asking if you’ve seen his earlier email and can tell him when you will do it.

if you still haven’t don it the next day* he sends another email cc’ing his boss and your boss reminding everyone that he asked…

problems is, he’s such an idiot he doesn’t seem to know who my boss is so picks people vaguely in my area of the business (but not my dept) and more senior than me, but rarely my actual boss, making himself look even more of a tit than we already think he is.

*regardless of it’s actual importance/priority

One of the PM’s I’m currently doing work for is quite happy cc’ing loads of people when he asks stupid questions to which he has already been given the required information. So I take great pleasure in replying to all when pointing him to the information in a previous email, or explaining something in very simple terms that everyone else understood the first time.

One of the PM’s I’m currently doing work for is quite happy cc’ing loads of people when he asks stupid questions to which he has already been given the required information. So I take great pleasure in replying to all when pointing him to the information in a previous email, or explaining something in very simple terms that everyone else understood the first time.

You’re going to have to help me here. Which one of the two is the mug?

Maybe you have a reputation for not responding?

I sit directly opposite a guy who communicates only over email. Literally every question or query is sent by email. Muppet.

I work with one of these…every single simple message he sends me is cc’d to our boss.

He also called out our maintenance department today to investigate the source of a rather pleasant smell…

Context is everything here.

Not wanting to blow my own trumpet here, but I consider myself fairly helpful and willing to help others at work. So I do find it a bit insulting if people cc the world into their requests to me.

I don’t tend to cc the world in unless I am getting nowhere with someone and they are holding up stuff that I need to get done and it looks like my fault. In fact, I still don’t do this unless they’re really getting on my tits – you can always forward sent messages to your boss to prove that you are chasing what you need.

It’s a judgement call really – if you ring a call centre where they clearly just want to fob you off, asking for the name of the person you are speaking to often seems to upgrade their willingness to be helpful.

I sit directly opposite a guy who communicates only over email. Literally every question or query is sent by email. Muppet.

Oh god, I’d long for an office full of those.

Email I can answer at my leisure, and deal with in bulk. So, eg, if there’s an outage, I can get on with fixing the problem and update people en masse as and when there’s progress, rather than having to stop and answer the phone every five minutes to people who seem to think that preventing me from working with their inane babble will get the problem fixed faster.

Political BS. My boss got so fed up with people CCing him for no reason that he’s just told us to stop. Good chap.

It’s a judgement call really

This.

I’ll sometimes CC: my boss in when I see something and think “ah, he needs to be made aware of this.” Usually though, I’ll tell him independently if there’s such an issue. Day to day, he’s better things to do than listening to reports from me every time the wind changes direction.

Never mind all this email protocol dick-swinging.

Has the sender had his balls cut off yet?

I’m a great believer in the simplest answer usually being the correct one- ergo, the guy who emailed you is a dick. Really don’t think it’s likely to be anything more complicated than that.

I’d probably just cc the unnecessary staff out, why waste their time.

We cc anyone involved, including bosses as they need to know which resources are doing what. That and the fact that pretty much everything needs to be logged and double checked for quality purposes but I suppose we are relatively rare in quality demands (one off products that have to work first time, cant be retrieved for repair and have to pass stringent tests on the way).

Missed pge 2, so sorry if already covered.

Reply to all –

“Happy to help. Lets discuss first thing tomorrow morning. I think this is very easy to sort out. So I would recommend not wasting boss/bosses time with copied emails. Lets just jointly provide them with the solution. I am sure they will appreciate that. Look forward to sorting this out tomorrow. Great idea!”

I suppose we are relatively rare in quality demands (one off products that have to work first time, cant be retrieved for repair and have to pass stringent tests on the way).

Ah, a rocket scientist… 😀

In many cases, the cc-ers are the ones doing a crap job and feel the need to pretend to their bosses. Good bosses know that! 😉 They (the cc-ers) are most likely pissing the bosses off more than you!

I can’t believe there are three pages of genuine replies on this subject.
Colleague CCing in the Boss?
Let’s go have a cry on the internet. 😥

Jesus H **** Christ, have you all got tits?
There’s so much oestrogen in here I’m surprised you haven’t all slid off your, no doubt orthopaedically correct, office chairs.

Get your waxed arses down the pub whilst you still have a chance.
🙄

😈 😉

Jesus H **** Christ, have you all got tits?

This is SRS BIZNIS!! This is exciting, manhood pumping, white knuckle stuff that clearly has to be discussed online.

I’m consistently bemused by some of the genuine threads on this site. “Which socks should I wear this morning” etc. and petty gripes about co workers.

OP, grow some balls, if it’s an issue deal with it. If not, spare us the dreadful monotony of a constantly bumped chat thread about petty work disputes that an ovary gland would solve with more gusto.

I bet sbob cc’d that ^^ to Chipps.

I normaly cc the line manager if its a repeat request to a job not done.
Personally hate forwarded emails with FYI at the top.