Change the status of a high priority message when you forward it

Here’s an easy way to look stupid. You get a “high priority” message from a summer associate asking if anyone knows a good dry cleaner in the Marina. Of course she’s sent the message to everyone in the firm and Blackberrys are buzzing all over the building, disrupting countless conference calls and vibrating themselves off the edges of desks like little rectangular lemmings. You’re so annoyed that you forward a copy to your best friend Doris, who works in the next building over. “Are these kids stupid, or just self-absorbed?” you ask her. “It’s hard to believe they’ve made it this far without learning how to use email. So maybe they actually think their dirty clothes are important enough to bother partners.” Your message, which has inherited the “high priority” status of the original, arrives in Doris’s office via the internet’s series of tubes while she’s on a conference call with her boss and starts her Blackberry vibrating in its particularly grating way before it dives off the desk in embarrassment.

Unless it really is critical, change the status of a high priority message before forwarding it. Otherwise you’re committing the same crime as the original sender. But hey, at least you didn’t hit “Reply to All” by mistake. Did you?