Proper Way of Replying to E-mail

陳豪在北京的ABC美國公司工作，他去找美國同事Amy。

(Office ambience)

CH：Amy, 我有個問題請教你。

A：I'll be happy to try to answer your question, but I don't have a lot of time. I have a meeting in a few minutes.

CH：就幾句話，是關于回電子郵件的。

A：Can you explain what you mean?

C：今天早上，我收到通知，說要開會，讓大家回個email, 看能不能參加。我就"reply to all"說能來。

A：What happened?

C：先后有三個人發電子郵件給我，叫我不要把回復的電子郵件寄給他們，好像挺不高興的。

A：They have a very good point. When you get a message by e-mail to announce a meeting, you should not reply to everyone else who received the e-mail. Your response should go only to the sender.

C：可我也經常會收到沒用的電子郵件，我就覺得無所謂。

A：Your reaction may have to do with your laid-back personality.

C：Laid-back personality?

A：Laid-back means easy-going. No one wants to get unnecessary e-mail like the one you sent. You are not being thoughtful of other people's time.

C：我真沒意識到別人會介意。

A：In the future think before you reply to all. Oh, I'm sorry, Chen Hao, but I've really got to go.

C：謝謝你，Amy. 我還有個小問題，你散會能給我打個電話嗎？

A：Sure. I call you after the meeting.

******

下午陳豪在辦公室寫報告。

Telephone rang....

C：Good afternoon. Accounting department. This is Chen Hao.

A：Hi CH. I am out of my meeting and wanted to call you before I go home.

C：太好了。我的問題是，我不知道回復電子郵件，什么時候用CC, 什么時候用BCC.

A：You are not alone. Lots of people have the same issue. "CC" means "courtesy copy." You use "CC" whenever you need to inform someone of what is being done but they are not responsible for doing it.

C：你能舉個例子嗎？

A：When your colleague needs to be sure that you know your duties, he sends the e-mail to you. However he sends a copy to your boss so he knows what is going on. You can see that your boss got the e-mail, too.

C：就是說，如果Kevin讓我在星期五之前把報表做完，他可以寫個電子郵件給我，然后CC給我老板。那BCC呢？

A："Bcc" stands for "blind "courtesy copy." It's used when you don't want the receiver to know who else got the message.

C：你是說不讓收件人知道還有其他收件人嗎？

A：That's right. The only time I find "Bcc" acceptable is when you don't want to reveal all the e-mail addresses of the people you are mailing to for security purposes.