my employee cc’s me on too many emails

by Alison Green on August 26, 2024

A reader writes:

I’m a director of a busy company. I receive upward of 1,000 emails a day, with 75% of them for awareness only but necessary nonetheless.

I have a report who manages a team of nine, all remotely. He copies me on everything — from meeting response notifications to emails to his employees to messages to IT about an employee’s computer issue. I’ve asked him why he does it and he says he wants to make sure I know what he is doing at all times. I told him that I trust him, he does a great job and it is not necessary. Problem is, he still does it.

I need to have a conversation with him, but knowing he can be sensitive and already feels like he has to defend his every move, I am afraid it will have a negative effect on our work relationship. However, I need that volume of email to stop and for me to not be so consumed with it.

I answer this question — and three others — over at Inc. today, where I’m revisiting letters that have been buried in the archives here from years ago (and sometimes updating/expanding my answers to them). You can read it here.

Other questions I’m answering there today include:

  • We didn’t hire our intern full-time and I’m worried she’ll be devastated
  • Employees want to work while they’re furloughed
  • Do I owe my friend a personal response on a message I forwarded on her behalf?
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{ 94 comments }

{ 94 comments… read them below }

  1. EA*

    For #1, I would give him a list of the situations in which you DO want to be copied. Don’t just say copy me less, something to the effect of “Please copy me only on emails about X, Y and Z.” That is completely reasonable and if he can’t handle that, I agree with Alison that there are greater issues.

    1. FashionablyEvil*

      The guy manages nine employees. If he needs his boss to give him a list of dos and don’ts for when to contact his boss, I would have serious questions about his judgment and decision-making.

      1. Archi-detect*

        For one I bet he is making his direct reports cc up everything to himand he spends hslf the day reading it

      2. I CC to cover my butt*

        That’s not necessarily true, that needing guidance from the boss is unfounded. I had a very good understanding with my boss about when and how to loop her into things, but I got a new boss who had a very different threshold for when she wanted to be cc’d. Boss #1 wanted the emails to have the paper trail and context, Boss #2 only wanted me to ping her on Teams unless there was a reason that her name needed to be seen in the cc: line to send a message to others on the chain.

        This guy is way over the top, but it’s not out of line to set some parameters as a boss as to what thing you DO want to see.

        1. Mgguy*

          I had always had supervisors who were mostly hands-off. They trusted me to do my job, and knew that they’d hear about it from others if I wasn’t.

          I reserved CCs for very specific situations, such as major updates on ongoing projects or if needed to help diffuse dealing with difficult individuals.

          I had a boss at my current employer for a year who needed to know EVERYTHING going on, and I got in serious trouble for not CCing on something minor that it wouldn’t have even crossed my mind to discuss with previous supervisors. She tended toward micro-managing, but also the threshold of what was worth CCing seemed to constantly change. I started CCing on everything, and was told that was not appropriate. I asked if we could work together to come up with a specific list of what she wanted to be looped into and what she didn’t, and was told I should be able to “figure it out.” I was left guessing and then would invariably be in further trouble for either including something I shouldn’t have, or not including something I should have.

          For that and other reasons, I was about ready to give up, but then that person was promoted on up and I no longer have to deal with them directly(and my current supervisor is very much of the trusting our judgement on what’s appropriate/not appropriate end of the spectrum).

          2. allathian*

            Amazing that a “damned if I do-damned if I don’t CC” manager was promoted! Looks like there’s some serious dysfunction in your organization.

            There’s no pleasing some people because they enjoy being in a position of authority where they can berate others more or less with impunity. They aren’t interested in improving the system and setting up rules for when they do and don’t want to be consulted, they just want to have a ready excuse to take out their anger on other people. With people like that, whatever you do, you’re always doing the wrong thing the wrong way.

            1. Mgguy*

              Part of the reason why I felt okay remaining is that there’s recognition at the highest levels that this dysfunction exists, and there’s an active effort from the top down to change it. It’s unfortunate too that some of it is a hold-over from past leadership that’s been gone for a while now, but some people were trained in that environment.

              This particular person is superb at some aspects of their job, and part of the reason behind the promotion was it put them essentially exclusively in charge of dealing with the things where they excel, and putting them out of the direct supervision of anyone.

              I was in a meeting last week where a small group of us met with the president of our organization to hear visions/ideas for the future of our organization and individuals role in it, and it came up that most of us are onboard with the president but we see this person as someone who actively opposes doing a lot of these things. Some of those are for regulatory/compliance/accreditation reasons, but some are just because the person is just, well, being themselves. The president’s general tone was that from the top down, patience is wearing very thin with this person, so I suspect that their days might be numbered with our organization. We will see though.

      3. NotAnotherManager!*

        I would need more information before having concerns about his judgment. People carry baggage from their previous jobs into future ones, and we don’t know if his last boss was a micromanager or someone where you constantly had to CYA via CC. It’s possible his judgment isn’t there, but we don’t really have enough information to tell from this.

        I generally find that specifically articulating my expectations is best for everyone. I’m not annoyed by their doing something they think is normal, and the don’t have to wonder what my preferences are. Being CCed on mundane things would drive me nuts, but I work with other managers whose expectations are very different from mine and would love being CCed on everything (some use rules to folder and review at a specific time each day/week, some read everything in real time).

    2. Kevin Sours*

      I would take the opposite approach as I’m not sure an all inclusive list in the abstract is going to work out. But responding in the moment with “Please don’t copy on this” would be a useful tool for course correction. And, if that doesn’t work, I would have questions about the employee’s ability to handle a position that requires abstract problem solving.

    3. What_the_What*

      I only manage 7 people and I don’t think I could come up with a comprehensive “these are the circumstances under which you should CC me on an email.” That would involve a crystal ball, basically, and inevitably the ONE thing not mentioned would be the one thing that happens and I don’t get CC’d because “well it wasn’t on the list!” Much better to tell the employee to use his best judgment in determining things that need action or attention from leadership versus just a heads up.

      1. Allonge*

        Yes, any such list will always end with ‘any other email where my attention / awareness is necessary for the issue’.

        It’s more realistic to say don’t cc just so I know what you are doing and expect a manager of people to have sufficient judgment after some specific feedback.

  2. Nicosloanica*

    Now we need an answer to this question when you’re *not* the boss, because I have the type of role (fundraising) where people think it’s reasonable that I might need to be looped in on everything, but I’m way past capacity to absorb my inbox at this point.

    1. ecnaseener*

      You might not have the same amount of authority, but you can still say “Please only cc me in XYZ situations, nothing else” and remind people about it as needed.

    2. Somehow I Manage*

      I would say what @EA said above and tailor it to your specific role. “Please copy me on things like X, Y and Z. I do not need to be copied on A, B and C. I am finding my inbox to be inundated with things I don’t need, which makes it hard to manage my inbox and do what I need to do.”

  3. Shift Work*

    I would set up a rule in my email that auto sorted messages from him to a separate folder and ask him to flag anything that required follow up (as opposed to the more FYI stuff). That could cut down on a lot of the visual noise and clutter of the more general Inbox.

    1. I should really pick a name*

      Why not just ask him not to send anything that doesn’t require follow-up?

        1. Archi-detect*

          yup, dont try to solve people problems with technology unless there are no other options.

          1. 1-800-BrownCow*

            Agreed. I actually find that auto-sorting creates more work for me as well, as they turn into a “I’ll catch up on these later when I have some free time”. Which, turns out, I never have free time and next things I know, I have hundreds of emails in another folder and deleting a crap-ton of emails I won’t read or I miss something that should be a priority.

            The issue should be addressed directly, not worked around using an email filter.

            1. BouncyShiny*

              I had a colleague who was quitting, and was telling me of the annoying behaviour of another colleague. The guy would question everything she said and cc:ing the manager while doing so. She felt he did this only with women.

              I brought up the issue to the manager later, because I saw the behaviour as concerning. The manager had never seen the emails, because he auto sorted cc:d emails to a separate folder that he never checked.

              In one way it was nice to know that a lot of passive agressive stuff just wound up in the void. But also, he was missing some problematic behaviour because of it.

    2. NotAnotherManager!*

      Seems easier just to have a basic conversation with him to set expectations. The issue isn’t the LW’s inbox, the issue is he needs feedback on his process.

  4. Trout 'Waver*

    I’ve found that “cc the boss on everything” is a sign of low-performing employee. More specifically, it’s a learned defense mechanism to a toxic culture. It’s a sign for the manager to do more digging.

    1. Seeking Second Childhood*

      I am a high performing employee. I copy my supervisor on pretty much everything because our company’s project tracking/management systems are inadequate. I am covering the department’s butt –there is no other way to track communications.

      Do not assume we’re happy with this or not working to fix it – after years of systems failing, I’m close to fixing its effect on my life by leaving. And then I expect it will take a very long time to remember I do not need to cc the next boss.

    2. Cj*

      in some cases, the boss may ask the employee to cc them on everything because they are low performing.

      in other cases it’s because the boss is an extreme micromanager, and requires all of their reports to do this.

      if the employee in question had a manager like this at a previous job, they might feel like they need to do it with this boss too. and like Alison said, their current boss telling them they don’t need to isn’t the same as telling them not to.

    3. Cj*

      some cases it can be a sign of a low performing employee because the boss tells them to CC them on everything because they are low performing.

      in other cases it’s because the boss is an extreme micromanager, and requires this of all their reports. if the employee in question had a boss like this at a previous job, they might feel like they need to do with this boss too.

      my apologies if this turns out to be a double post. I thought I posted it a little while ago, but don’t see it.

      1. Blue Pen*

        I would also add that new employees might over-copy their managers on emails to give their supervisor a chance to step in if needed. After a while, they (should) wean themselves off from that arrangement.

    4. Meep*

      Not necessarily. I think it is a bad take. There can be tons of reasons – the employee doesn’t feel they are getting enough exposure for the work they are doing, the only time someone responds is when a manager is cc’ed (happens a lot as a woman engineer), etc

      1. Trout 'Waver*

        Well, if your boss doesn’t know what you’re doing, that’s a problem. If you think the solution is to cc your boss on everything, that’s a bigger problem. If that’s what the culture is at that workplace, that’s a toxic culture.

        I’m trying to think of a non-toxic situation where the answer is “cc your boss on everything” and I’m drawing a blank.

        1. Guacamole Bob*

          It might help for OP to talk about how she evaluates how well this manager is doing – that the manager is expected to manage his own schedule and workload, that his performance is evaluated on outcomes for the team he manages like X, Y, and Z and not on the specifics of what meeting he’s attending on Tuesday morning at 10 a.m., and that the judgment about how to meet those goals is a significant part of what he was hired for and he has the discretion to make decisions that will let his team meet those goals.

          1. Guacamole Bob*

            “Make sure my boss knows what I’m doing” can mean very different things in different types of roles. My boss knows what I’m doing in a big-picture sense, but she manages 6 teams with a total of at least 50 people so she often has no idea where I am or what I’m working on at a given moment. That is very different from someone who is a receptionist or customer service rep or many other roles where the manager might need to know where that person is and what they are working on specifically at that moment.

    5. Blue Pen*

      Eh, “low-performing” is not at all the same thing as someone who is responding to a current or prior work environment. I was that employee at my last company, and I sincerely doubt anyone would’ve considered me a low performer (even when I first started).

      I do agree, though, in that it can be a red flag for the employee’s lack of confidence, judgment, autonomy, etc.

    6. Ana Maus*

      It certainly could be, though there are other reasons for it. For example, I’ve had a boss request that I copy them on everything. It was no reflection on my work, this was the request from day one. I was a consultant and leadership above my boss could decide that my contract was not going to be renewed at any time.

    7. Hastily Blessed Fritos*

      It sounds like you’re blaming people for the actions of toxic bosses or for having previously worked someplace toxic; was there supposed to be an “or” in there rather than the “more specifically”? It really doesn’t make sense as is.

      1. Trout 'Waver*

        I’m not blaming people. If I asked someone to dig a ditch and only gave them a garden trowel, they’d be low-performing. It has nothing to do with their capability or their intrinsic worth.

    8. Mary*

      My first boss ever told me to cc her on everything and for a while I just thought that was the normal thing to do. But yes, that was a toxic workplace where I made the most friends based on our hatred of certai people.

      I don’t regularly cc my bosses anymore, but every now and then someone decides to forward my email to my boss and I later find out about it, I kind of wish I’d beaten them to it, you know? I know it won’t do me any good, but I’m not above being petty.

    9. Salmon Shover*

      I’ve found that making sweeping generalisation about others based on limited personal experience is a sign of a weak and inexperienced mind. More specifically, it’s a sign of a lack of ability to perceive nuance and to understand complexity. It’s a sign for the person to do some more learning.

      1. Trout 'Waver*

        The fact that you read what I wrote and decided to take offense and attack me for it says a lot more about you than it does me.

    10. Trout 'Waver*

      I feel like all the people saying that they were cc’ing the boss because they were in a toxic environment are proving my point. Would you say you were performing to your full capabilities in those environments?

      1. NotAnotherManager!*

        I think it’s bad framing/phrasing. Calling an employee low-performing is generally a commentary on personal attributes or performance not of their circumstances. I think if you’d said that the toxic culture could hobble even the most competent people would have drawn much less negative response.

        It is also possible to be high-performing in a toxic culture, and, in fact, one of the ways some of these toxic culture perpetuate is that the people who suck at management, process, and/or culture are still overall successful. (Years of BigLaw – there are some toxic, awful people who make everyone around them miserable but are wealthy and successful in their area of practice. The last practice I worked with was wildly successful but full of bees, and everyone stayed despite the bees because of how much they got paid to put up with it. I’m guessing finance and big 4 consulting has similar hives in some places.)

  5. Guacamole Bob*

    Oh, man, that amount of cc’d email would drive me bananas. I manage a team similar in size to the one he does, and I cannot imagine cc’ing my manager on everything I do.

    This feels like a fundamental misunderstanding of his role – a critical part of my job is figuring out what needs to be escalated and what doesn’t, when higher-level folks need to step in and what can be handled at the staff level, etc. In addition to directly asking him to stop with the cc’ing, I’d talk with him about how being successful in a management role means developing that kind of judgment – I imagine that email is only one symptom of a larger issue if he thinks his manager should be aware of every little thing.

    1. Sunny*

      Agree with this. It seems he’s missing the point of his role – which is that his boss doesn’t have time to do these things (or think about them), and that’s why he’s managing these people. It’s how/why companies expand and managers exist at that mid-level.

    2. Pay no attention...*

      I agree too. I think this is it exactly what’s wrong with this employee — he can’t or doesn’t want to learn what needs to be escalated. This is what a weekly wrap-up email might be for… Mr. CC should summarize in bullet points the gist of all of those emails.

      1. Guacamole Bob*

        Yes – one bullet point in an update email that says that it took three tries to get an IT issue fixed which has caused a small delay in project X is useful. Being cc’d on 12 emails back and forth with IT doesn’t really get that relevant info across in a useful way.

    3. Mary*

      It could also depend on the boss’s personality and how they express their concerns. I once had a job where I kind of had three bosses, and the two were pretty hands off. The third one seemed to have a lot of anxiety if he didn’t know EVERYTHING though, so I started cc’ing him and he no longer stopped by my desk to ask clarifying questions.

  6. CubeFarmer*

    I’ve learned that some companies have a culture of cc’ing everyone.

    I have a small team (just two) and we generally cc each other on most of our emails because it’s helpful to have the other person know what you’re up to.

  7. Mostly Managing*

    I cc my boss when she asks me to, and otherwise I just get on with my job.

    It was amusing a few weeks ago when I was sending an email asking someone for a favour. Boss said “cc me – he’s more likely to say yes if he knows I know you asked”!

    1. Tupac Coachella*

      Interestingly, this is one of the reasons I overthink cc’ing my boss sometimes. I worry that it will come across as a flex, borrowing authority to get them to take my request seriously. Usually it’s more about covering myself and/or keeping the boss looped in on what’s happening with whatever thing they’re prioritizing.

      Of course, occasionally I really am trying to borrow authority, like in the case when your boss told you to cc him. In those cases, I don’t care if they realize that-maybe it’s not such a bad thing to get them wondering why I don’t trust them to follow through without extra eyes on them.

      1. Freya*

        I’ve had people threaten to escalate to my boss, to which my response is to CC Boss on the next email in the thread, and (usually with Boss’ blessing) drop them to the bottom of the list of priorities.

  8. Djs*

    Tangential question about #1- is it normal for people in a director position to get 1000+ emails daily? This seems like an unmanageable mess for anyone.

    1. Caramel & Cheddar*

      Yeah that seemed untenable. I appreciate that some jobs are very email heavy, but that can’t possibly be manageable (and it sounds like it’s not).

    3. Cj*

      that’s what I was thinking. granted, they might work more than an 8 hour day, but there are four hundred and eighty minutes if they do work 8 hours. that’s not much more than 30 seconds per email, and while they say a lot of them are just an fyi, there have to be some that they have to respond to. how on Earth would they get anything else done during the day?

    4. HSE Compliance*

      I was in a management team level position and regularly getting 400-500 emails a day. A lot of it was due to poor company culture and wanting me to tell them it was okay to not follow the established process or some variety of nonsense I really didn’t need at all. It was difficult to keep up, especially because mixed in with the shenanigans were emails I actually needed, often by the same person. There are a lot of people that seem to think that the more emails they send and receive, clearly, the more important they are.

      Now in a director level position and I get maybe 50-100 a day. It’s glorious.

    5. Sola Lingua Bona Lingua Mortua Est*

      I get 1000+ as a programmer. I have no doubt someone higher on the food chain would get even more.

      Literally, when I left my last role, my junk folder had a 31-day auto-delete policy and I never had fewer than 55M (55,000) emails in it. Often I had more than 100M in it. None of that even touches the legit emails that didn’t get diverted away from my inbox.

      1. Caramel & Cheddar*

        Can you expand on why you got that many as a programmer? i.e. were half of them automated notifications from some sort of support ticket system, etc. I don’t think my email program would even open if I had 55,000 emails in the junk folder!

        1. Sola Lingua Bona Lingua Mortua Est*

          Outlook corrupted several VMs before I started using the web interface.

          I got an email every time a ticket I was assigned was updated–including its priority passively when a new, unrelated ticket was created. A single event might trigger upwards of 8 updates. I ended up on mailing lists that got email notifications every time a client uploaded a file, downloaded proofs, approved a job, or contacted customer service (Yes, no one needs to know of all those occasions, but as I filled different roles on different teams, I ended up on all of them). Due to some low-performing peers, several other departments established SOP of emailing entire teams instead of individuals (in the hopes that any attempted pushback would trigger bullying and mob counter-pushback, which it often did). Then, lest we ignore them, the peers who would email all.employees@dysfunctional.masterpiece.theatre no matter to whom they intended to correspond.

          I finally resorted to creating a list that was essentially the chain of command above me and anyone else who could effectively yank my professional chain and created a rule that routed every email I received where I did not appear in the To:, CC:, or BCC: fields and the sender did not appear on that list to Junk and declared that we’d polluted the email system to the point where it no longer could be called “communication.”

          I had peers in similar boats who weren’t as brazen who literally could spend 8 hours just “checking email” and still not get through everything.

          1. Caramel & Cheddar*

            Well that sounds positively horrifying, but I’m glad you figured out a system that worked for you!

    7. Adam*

      I wouldn’t say it’s normal, but it’s the kind of thing that can happen if the company culture is like that. I used to work at a company that was very email-centric, and even as an IC I got 300-400 emails a day. You get very good at setting up filters and quickly evaluating whether an email matters.

    8. a clockwork lemon*

      I’m a VP and on very busy days get a couple hundred a day. My boss gets 500-1000, HIS boss sometimes gets upwards of ten emails a minute. It’s partly our corporate culture, but the other part of it is that he’s an MD in a company with over 100k employees, so he ends up (appropriately) included on a lot of stuff; if he only got three emails a day from everyone in his immediate departmental reporting line, he’d still end up with over fifty.

    9. kiki*

      It’s not unheard of but in my experience it means that something is wrong. Any one individual receiving that many emails is a recipe for disaster. It’s not possible to read them all and unless a lot of those emails are junk that never has to be read and it’s not possible to really filter them in a good way.

      Having an inbox where emails may or may not actually be read also creates confusion— people may feel like they’re alerting somebody of something, maybe even repeatedly, but the info is falling down a blackhole. Something is going to be missed or lost in that system.

    10. Pizza Rat*

      I was wondering about this. It may very well be that a lot of these are automated updates from systems or alerts to something that’s gone wrong.

      1000 is an awful lot.

    11. General von Klinkerhoffen*

      When I reported directly to a director of a large organisation he was definitely getting that many emails a day.

      The cheat code was that if you needed him to read and/or action it (rather than just have access to it) you had to cc his very efficient EA who would then put it under his nose in person.

      1. Reluctant Mezzo*

        Yes, I once bragged if I needed something signed by Uberboss I would approach his assistant with the document and a bar of chocolate. People looked at me like ‘damn, wish I’d thought of that’. I’m not saying people took notes, but the assistant warmly thanked me a few weeks later…

    12. IT Manager*

      Yes. I have this role and get this many emails daily.

      Yes, it is unmanageable. I tell my teams to use the @ feature in outlook, mark the subject “action needed” and/or followup with a meeting if they need me to see an email.

  9. el l*

    Second the advice on “No, I don’t WANT to know what you’re doing at all moments.” That’s a necessary part of organization – keeping information to a manageable level (literally) is boss’ problem, and if the employee won’t work with them on that, there are bigger problems here.

    Sounds like employee has some significant trust issues – they’ve built up some kind of panopticon thing with their boss. But diagnosing them is ultimately not boss’ problem.

  10. too little time*

    OP1, If I were you, I’d directy tell what Alison suggested. and on top of that, since it looks like you are Cced on a lot of emails. I would totally set automated rule to move msgs from him and most other ppl to got into a CC folder. You can also set it up to mark them as read when you set up these rules.

    For things that I need to action upon, at director level, I would specifically look on msgs that have @my_name tags, or direct To msgs.

  11. Somehow I Manage*

    I think OP1 needs to be very explicit with the employee about what they should be copied on and what they shouldn’t be copied on. Also, if I had an employee cc’ing me on everything just to show their work, I would probably have a reaction that was opposite of what they wanted. You’re potentially undermining how your manager sees you and how effective you are as a manager.

  12. to do or not to do?*

    (Do I owe my friend a personal response on a message I forwarded on her behalf?
    )
    OP4, you can let your friend know that you’ve forwarded it and they’ll reach out if needed and leave it at that.

  13. Peter*

    LW1, when you tell your employee to CC you far less, please do tell him what you say above about getting 1,000 work emails a day. This is so extreme and outlandish (at least in any office I’ve worked in) that he’ll hopefully realise immediately that he isn’t helping you by adding to the volume.

  14. JPalmer*

    LW2 I think this situation sucks and these are some consequences of hiring someone else. Like ‘Oh she will be fine once she meets the person replacing her’ feels incredibly business-impersonal and neglecting of the feelings people usually have. I think LW2 should expect that this business decision is going to be a loss in productivity or a burnt bridge and it’s the business’s fault there.

    I think LW2 can help handle this situation by focusing on what the intern is doing well and where they can improve, so that they can focus on the growth and future opportunity. If the intern is doing good work I’d probably offer to provide a reference as that will help them feel ‘their future’ isnt destroyed by the business’ decision to hire someone else (which can feel, especially for young folks trying to break in and establish their careers).

    And note, I’m not saying the business can’t decide to hire someone other than its interns, just that the action has consequences I don’t think were considered.

    1. Goldenrod*

      My take on LW2 is that this won’t necessarily go badly. It depends so much on the individual personalities.

      At one of my last jobs, I lost out to a co-worker who I ended up becoming really good friends with. I felt bad about not getting the role, but I knew it wasn’t her fault and I didn’t blame her. We both sort of understood it was out of our hands and didn’t hold it against each other. It really depends on the personalities in play.

  15. FunkyMunky*

    For LW1 – create a rule in your inbox that filters all emails from him to a dedicated folder and marks them as read when it does so. Boom! Skim through these once a week if you need to, otherwise just let them sit there until your Outlook will archive them

    1. Peanut Hamper*

      Except the problem is not “How do I handle all these emails my employee is sending me?” but “How do I get my employee to only email about the important things?”

  16. Sunny*

    I would also wonder about the effect on employees under this manager. If my manager was cc’ing the grand boss on every interaction, I’d worry I was somehow in trouble. Or start wondering if the manager was in trouble. It’s very odd behaviour.

  17. Fluffy Fish*

    Not hiring the intern – Please be very very thoughtful if your answer is “they had more experience”. We’re all familiar at this point of the dance of a position is entry level but requires x years of experience which I cant get because no one will hire me.

    1. Velawciraptor*

      Also, please be thoughtful about the intern being in the same office as the person hired for the position. The intern should not, at any point, be put in the position of having to train the other employee or otherwise get them up to speed. It’s not only demoralizing to be told that you’re not good enough for the job, but you’re good enough to train the person who is. It’s also an inappropriate position to put an intern in the position of training a full time employee; the intern is there to learn, first and foremost.

  18. Artemesia*

    Wanting to work on furlough? Wow. Don’t be subtle here. Revoke email access immediately and let the employee know when furloughed that this is a legal liability and they may not do it. Be very clear that continuing contact with vendors is a firing offense. Perhaps say it more gracefully but make it clear that they MAY NOT do this while on furlough as it violates federal law.

  19. Keyboard Cowboy*

    #2 (not hiring the intern) – it seems odd to me that the intern was applying to open roles before concluding the internship. Is this normal? In my industry (software) it’s much more normal for interns to have a conversion discussion at the end of the internship. I’d be really surprised if my intern applied to a different full-time role without concluding the internship first.

    1. RedinSC*

      If this was a 6 month or a year long internship, I can totally see someone applying while still interning.

      HIring processes where I work can take MONTHS, actually (it’s truly a nightmare), so this didn’t stand out to me at all for being weird.

      We’ve also had some interns come in the summer, then after they graduate, they come back, so they’ve interned more than once for us. Applying for jobs is what they’re doing while gaining additional intern experience.

  20. Blue Pen*

    Prior to joining another position, I was conditioned to having to CC my boss on pretty much every email. So, I never questioned it in my next role, until my new boss was like “….?” It never occurred to me that they were already receiving a ton of email on their own, their sole job wasn’t to monitor me and my work habits, and that, hey, they actually might trust me to do this thing.

    I feel for the person the LW is writing about because workplace trauma can quickly transcend into the need for validation, but if the LW has told them to stop, they need to stop. I understand their sensitivity, but I don’t think they realize how much of a disservice they’re doing to themselves and their career when they loop in the boss every single time.

  21. One HR Opinion*

    For anyone in a similar situation, set up the rule so, when email is from cc’ing employee and my name is not in the To box, move to xyz folder. That way to don’t miss things that are sent directly to you.

  22. RedinSC*

    And I thought I got a lot of emails at over 100 a day. BUT omg, 1000 a day! NO THANK YOU!

    LW, email rules are your friend.

  23. Kristen Doute #1 Fan*

    I wish I’d had #1 at my first job. My boss set up my email before I started working there and made it so she was CC’d on all my outgoing emails.

    1. Kristen Doute #1 Fan*

      Forgot to add — later, my job duties were adjusted so I had to sort her email inbox into things she needed to read vs things she didn’t. Lol

  24. Computer-Man*

    From a not-director IT perspective, I usually assume one who is CC’ing their boss/higher level is being an a-hole to try and intimidate other staff into getting things done faster*.

    *providing there’s not a very plausible and obvious reason where the boss should be kept in the loop

  25. Raida*

    I’d go with three (maybe four) things:
    1) tell him what I want
    2) tell him what I don’t want
    3) show him what I expect
    [optional] 4) show the business will offer support on him working on un-learning what is behaviour probably from a micromanager or shitty parents/teachers being overly critical

    1) I’d list out when I do need to be copied in, so there’s a clear reference for him.

    2) I’d list out examples of inbox bloat, and show that within the context of how many emails you get in a day/week – see if IT can provide a little report showing the totals per day for it to be really real.

    3) I’d say that I expect him to inform me of Me-relevant things, and I need him to take responsibility for everything other than that. Giving examples such as “the outcome of the meeting was [summary two sentences], minutes attached.” but not send me meeting rsvp responses – because what am I going to do with that information in both cases?
    The first I will have quick reference to outcomes (of meetings that I *actually* need to know about), the second I cannot do anything with – if there was a need for me to step in due to low rsvp from one team repeatedly that would be a direct request with supporting data not an expectation I’ll read every one of them and spot a pattern myself.
    Setting up a monthly or weekly summary *of outcomes and statuses only* might be a way to create a structure he needs and can be defined to work within, as well.

  26. TheBunny*

    As a manager with 5 direct reports, I also get a ton of emails. So many.

    What I’ve asked of my team is if they need me to know something, as in “I’m about to call you to discuss this” cc me. Cc means “I’m telling you but don’t need you to jump in and say anything.”

    If you need action on it from me…include me. But in the “to” line.

    If you just want to make sure I know about something, forward it to me after all the email fluttering has happened and tell me it’s “FYI”.

    While this isn’t a perfect system, and I certainly don’t enforce it (no one gets in trouble for a cc that should have been an FYI for example) I have received feedback that this makes them consider who is included in an email and not just when it’s me they are considering.

    So if that’s the win, and someone, somewhere, has received one fewer email because of this system, I’ll take it.

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