One of the worst things out there on the Internet right now, as far as spam goes, is the circulation of email chains (also knows as “forwards”). This involves sending videos, stories, jokes, warnings, etc. to everyone in your address book by simply hitting the forward and including everyone in your inbox.

Have you recently received an email like this?

FW: Add Cell Phones to Do Not Call Registry
FW: SB-2099 – Bill Requiring Federal Tax on Guns
FW: Ericsson ‘Free Laptop’ Promotion
FW: Fourth-Grade Teacher’s Letter to Obama
FW: Barack Obama Is a Muslim
FW: Mr. Rogers Was a Marine Sniper / Navy Seal

I hate to break it to anyone who has stakes their lives on any of these being true, they’re not. They are hoaxes and often have particial truths but that are misconstrued to get peoples’ attention and have them forward the message to everyone in their email address book.

Why do these emails exist?

The short answer is simple: SPAM.

Take a look at the last email that you received and forwarded to someone else. Look at how many email addresses are in it. The last email forward I received had a grand total of fifty-three email addresses embedded in it.

David Emery, on UrbanLegends.About.Com, explains that the perpetuation of the misinformation in these type of emails are done because “it rouses people to action.” – David Emery, Urban Legends Guide

Making people scared, worried, concerned, or elated at the prospect of getting something free, gets people to hit that forward button and blast the email to everyone they know.

Sooner or later, this message is going to end up in the hands of someone who “harvests” email addresses to sell them to spammers. In fact, some of these email harvesters actually subscribe to newslists of jokes and inspirational stories, in order to guarantee that they’ll get the email forwards.

Why you may ask? Spammers don’t make money on the things people buy from spam emails, they make money on the number of successful emails that get send. So if a company selling some product pays a spammer to reach people, they will pay the spammer some pennies for each successful email receipt.

In other words, every time you send out one of those forwards, you are putting all of your friends’ email addresses (not to mention your own) into the hands of spammers. No wonder everyone is always perplexed at the amount of spam they get!

Furthermore, imagine this email message being sent to 25-100 people every time you or someone else forwards and copies your entire hotmail or yahoo address book. Then each of those individuals does the same. After a couple of rounds, the giant message is being delivered to thousands and thousands of email inboxes all over the world. As a one time email administrator, I can assure you that email servers don’t like these large messages, and they bog down the email delivery process.

What can you do?

There are a few things you can do. Either you should stop sending email forwards, or you should do the following:

• Look at the text of the email message. Are there email addresses in it? DELETE THEM ALL before you forward the email.
• When you forward the email, you should not put any addresses in either the “To” field or the “Carbon Copy” (CC) field. Every email address must go in the “Blind Carbon Copy” (BCC) field. This is the only way to guarrantee that your friends’ email addresses will be invisible to others.

Of course, that won’t prevent your email address from ending up in the hands of spammers, but at least it protects your friends.The next time, however, you do receive an message like this, reply to the sender and inform them about the problem of sending emails like this with all of the addresses visible. If you’re not comfortable with sending the message, at least point them to an article they can read about it and what they should do in the future. With more education on the part of Internet and email users we can all help curb the SPAM problem and make the Internet a better place.

Voicemail is one of those extremely useful tools in the workplace that often gets ignored and is so often misused. I am a champion of voicemail when used properly and correctly. Too often people take voicemail for granted and often blatantly express to others, through their voicemail messages, that they are liars and don’t actually care about others who are attempting to contact them.

Have you recently been a victim of a voicemail liar? Have you recently come across any of the following? Are you a voicemail liar? Maybe you should take a moment and review what you are saying in your messages and what you truly mean.

VOICEMAIL NO NO’S:

“Sorry I missed your call…”

Are you really sorry that you missed this call? Most times people are not. If they were, they would really respond to the message left by the caller. Too often people are screening calls, or just simple ignoring them, or sometimes, having secretaries or receptionists transfter callers straight to voicemail. If this is the case, you’re not really sorry that you missed the call, you don’t really want to take it in the first place.

“Leave a message and I’ll call you back…”

Will you really call the person back? So many times people carelessly state that they will return the call when they have no intention of doing so. If you do this, but have the tendency to not return the call, callers will know that you are not an honest person, since you say things you really don’t mean. If you say you’ll call the person back, do it.

“Today is (some old date)”

If you are going to tailor your message to include a date, you’ve got to keep the commitment to this type of message. Think of it as your cellphone plan, or your mortgage, you’re locked in to staying on top of it. If it becomes too much, change your message back to a more generic message that you can handle.

VOICEMAIL HONESTY:

“I rarely check my voicemail messages, please email me at: <EMAIL@ADDRESS_COM>”

I’ve come across these type of messages from time to time. At first, you’re almost inclines to laugh at it, but I respect the honesty of the individuals who have this type of message. It’s brutal in a way, but you know what to expect. The individual won’t really be checking messages or be calling the person back, but you know that if you REALLY need to reach them, shoot them an email.

Next time, you’re recording your voicemail message, remember what you’re trying to accomplish with the message. Do you want to portray yourself as a liar, or someone who is professional? Take the higher road, be professional, leave a good voicemail message that the caller can know what to expect and when they can expect to hear back from you.

As the economic downturn continues, and when most companies face a decline in business, most managers and company owners see employees as a big cost and an area where they can cut wages in order to save the company money.

The problem with this solution is that once you consider the direct and indirect costs of a layoff — outplacement, unemployment benefits, re-hiring and training new employees, layoffs end up costing a company between 150 percent and 250 percent of an employee’s salary and rarely improve financial results.

Often times, you will read how workers who have been laid off have seen it coming and many even express a relief from finally getting to what was inevitable. It’s times like this when employees should step up and try to do something about the problem with the company. There are generally some key things that employees can do to potentially avoid a looming layoff:

1) Suggest Alternatives: Request a meeting with your manager and bring to him your concern and data showing the business benefits of thinking differently about alternatives to layoffs. At least it’s now on their radar screen, and the earlier the better before layoff decisions have already been made. Most managers may not be focusing on laying employees off until company heads request that this be done so letting your manager know about your ideas gets those alternatives on his radar.

2) Get Other Employees to Help: There’s power in numbers. Get together and talk to other employees about it and talk about alternatives. You may be able to get other employees to agree to certain alternatives that you can take to management. No manager likes to lay people off, but unfortunately too many still think they have no choice. You’re sharing options that make solid business sense. And while some job cuts may still be necessary, there may be fewer.

3) Mangagers Need to Think “Out of the Box”: Other than laying employees off, there are a number of alternatives that can be implemented which will still reduce costs, increase revenue, and reduce the negative effect of layoffs. It’s key to get a sense for how much you’re trying to save, sometimes laying off employees may be too drastic for the amount the company needs to save. Go to your team, tell them what your goals are and ask them to come up with ideas for solutions. Give them some options. Suggest reducing schedules and salaries, job-sharing, or adding unpaid vacation days to the calendar.

Companies like FedEx and Dell have used this approach and they have been praised for it. Your company can join this movement and break out of the traditional approach to cost savings which simply makes good business sense, not to mention helps more people keep their jobs.