! This Message is of the Highest Importance !

There is a sales assistant in an outside office that I have never met. I’ve spoken to her only once or twice on the phone and she seems nice enough. But she commits one of my top office crimes. She flags every single email as “Highest Importance” with a bright red exclamation point.

To be fair, she has sent me some important information that I requested for an upcoming event. It was, however, similar information that I requested from other sales assistants and no one else changed the priority of their emails.

The bright red exclamation point on most to all of a person’s emails is one of my biggest pet peeves because I just don’t understand the logic behind it. If every email you send has a bright red exclamation point, every email is of equal importance.

I received nearly 10 emails from her today and all of them, in her opinion, where of highest importance. In my opinion, maybe two were of high importance and even that’s a stretch.