Kill Reply All: A Guide to Online Etiquette

“Kill Reply All: A Modern Guide to Online Etiquette, from Social Media to Work to Love”
by Victoria Turk
2020/Plume
$16/216 pages
 
Coat off, computer on, coffee poured, and what’s the next thing you do when you get to work? If you’re like most, you check your email, deal with the messages, check again, deal with the messages, check again….

In fact, studies show that the average person checks work emails nearly 80 times a day.

Email, says Victoria Turk in her new book, “Kill Reply All,” is not an optimal way to communicate. Turk lays out a method of “Inbox Zero” for readers to try, bearing in mind there are times when a reply to an email simply isn’t warranted.

Learn to email like a CEO (unless you’re in sales); know your options (including old-school methods); practice compassion for your co-workers by using the “bcc;” don’t “reply all;” and never leave a voicemail.

As for informal communication, know how to avoid confusing your friends, how to use chat apps correctly, and learn why the inventor of the MUTE button should “be handed a Nobel Peace Prize.” And if you’re thinking about creating a “work group” with a chat app, think again.

Turk makes sense of new etiquette rules to heed and faux pas to avoid in mostly helpful, usable mini-chapters. Be aware, however, that some points may make certain readers rear back in horror; she is, for instance, not a fan of old-fashioned phone calls.

The good news is, nobody ever said you had to follow everything, right? Feel free to skip around in this book; the info on dating may be irrelevant but amusing. For every businessperson who wants to do right and do better, this book will be a hit.