Office Speak: “Copying In…”

The other week I was writing about how we describe things in a way that is no longer relevant to what actually happens – like being Out-of-Office.

This is another one a bit like that. Do you know why you cc someone in email? Or, even bcc?

• cc: Carbon Copy
• bcc: Blind Carbon Copy

Both of which being from the days of paper when you quite literally sent someone a copy of an original created on a carbon copier. It was convention to put the names of the individuals at the bottom of the front page with the letters cc so that everyone knew who had a copy. No one has to go to the effort of finding a carbon copier anymore, we have email for that and adding people to a distribution list is as easy as hitting reply (or forward) and adding in a few extra names. There’s still plenty of carbon involved, but the carbon copier has become redundant.

This post isn’t just about mechanics and names though, it’s also about office practices.

Here’s the scenario:

You send an email to a colleague asking them a question.

The recipient replies to your email and puts at the bottom – or somewhere else in the email, or sometimes it’s the only content of the email – copying in… followed by a few names.

Then, if it’s really not your day, one of the people who have been copied in sends a reply and again states copying in…

Then some time later you get another reply that says copying in…list of name…for information.

(I could go on, but you get the point. The worst case of this I can remember went through eight iterations of copying in… Imagine how many people that was.)

You still haven’t got the answer to the question you asked at the beginning, you have a list of names, but you’re not any nearer knowing whether any of the people who have received a copy can furnish you with an answer.

Actually, you don’t have a list of names, you have several lists of names. Lists that, over time, become so complicated that people start copying in people who have already been copied in.

There are many times when I’m on the receiving end of a copying in… I’m often completely unaware of what I’ve been copied in to. Looking down the chain of the email doesn’t help my understanding of the question being asked or the issue needing consideration.

The very words copying in… provoke a negative emotional response in me. I’m not sure that I fully understand why, but there’s an odour of dread to every copying in…, a scent of collaboration gone wrong and email overload.

As the people involved escalates there’s also a feeling of guilt at the time being wasted as people church through noisy email chains that mostly says copying in…

There’s a point at which I want to say: Stop. But I never do, it’s futile, copying in… has taken on a life of its own. Perhaps it’s my issue and I’m trying to control the conversation too much. I should know better, by now, than to use email for such communication, but old habits and all that.

I know people are just trying to be helpful, but I’d rather they weren’t. If they don’t know the answer that’s fine, I have other ways of finding the answer.

Header image: Sunset above the fields near to where I live. We are still in a lockdown that requires us to stay local.