The email thing that infuriates me is when people send something to a mailing list that I am on, that they think that I should read and copy the mail to me as well. At work, we have people sending the same mail to three mailing lists and then I receive a fourth copy too. Aarrggh!

For a tool that has been around for the last 30-odd years, I am amazed that people are as bad at email as they are. And I'm not talking here about secretaries, or non-technical staff. I'm talking about scientists in a research institute!

In a work setting I think it's fine as long as there's some level of interest. Obviously it's a balancing act, but I like to keep my direct manager and peers working on the same component informed about test plans, etc.

One other issue with CCing everyone is that you always end up with someone throwing their two cents in about minor issues when they aren't even invested in the project.

That's why you can have more than one email in the 'To' field:

To: You want to read this.

CC: You may want to refer to this.

Good luck with that. People at my company regularly send out meeting invites to 3-4x as many people as are actually desired at the meeting. As with email ccs, It's a CYA thing, to prevent other people from claiming ignorance when the shit hits the fan later.