The Jokes On ... You?

I'm sure somebody has already done this, but if not, somebody should write a guide to email etiquette. It should be a must-read for anyone who chooses to communicate electronically.

There's nothing worse than the person who finally decided to step into the 21st Century and get an email account, and thinks it's cool to forward every joke that comes across their inbox to all their friends. Or every bogus warning urging you to pass it along to five of your friends or risk years of bad luck, or, even better earn a $50,000 check from Microsoft if you send it to 20 friends. Do people really believe this stuff? Then there's the chronic emailers who haven't figured out the Bcc.. feature. No, it's not cool to send a useless email to 200 of your closest friends and further annoy me by making my email public to the whole group. It's even uncooler when someone hits Reply All in response.

If you're wondering what sparked my little email rant, the public relations manager for the Golden State Warriors was fired Wednesday for inadvertently sending out a racially insensitive e-mail titled "Ghetto Prom" to the team's entire media distribution list. Obviously, homeboy should have been working, but like many of us who are probably guilty of doing the same thing at some time or another, he slipped up.

I've had friends fired for similar things -- good people whose jobs were flushed down the toilet for an honest mistake. There's an old adage that we use in the TV business that is probably applicable here. Even if you don't think you're on-air, never say anything with a microphone on that you wouldn't want the audience to hear.

By the way, ByronCrawford.com, a site that calls itself the only hip-hop blog on the Internet, has pictures of the Ghetto Prom.

One more quick rant on the chronic emailers. I hate those guys who email a bunch of people every time they get a cool job, promotion, award or start some stupid blog. Glad I don't know anyone like that.

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