3 Ways People Use CC in Emails for Office Politics

Using “cc” (carbon copy) on email, a seemingly harmless tool has become a weapon of passive aggressive office warfare. Here are 3 ways “cc” is used politically in the world of work.

1. CC for “e-tattling”.

Probably the most common strategy is including someones boss or a whole bunch of “higher ups” in the company to an email chain. The tactical purpose of this move is to cover ones back and to snitch on someone by including other people to bear witness to the electronic trail that provides evidence of that individuals inadequacy. This is also referred to as “cowards copy”.

2. CC to force a response.

There is that person that constantly cc’s your boss (and the whole world) every time they make a request, demonstrating that they do not trust you to respond timeously or to make you look bad if you turn down the request. In addition, this tactic also serves to escalate a matter in an underhanded manner.

3. CC for shameless self-promoting.

Individuals who want to look smart and busy to senior managers go out of their way to cc people unnecessarily. This tactic is particularly effective when the emails are sent out late at night or early in the morning to show commitment and provide visibility for their “hard work”.

What has been your experience with this?

Shah Fahad Hassan is a MS SPM grad from FAST and currently works as a Quality Assurance Test Manager in Proleadsoft. 


  • 1. Sara Boojh apne kandhey pe dalne ki bajaye share karne ka tarika hy
    2. Sust Logon ko jagane aur darane ka tarika, oh management cc hy abh to reply karna pare ga.
    3. Han increment k time management kehti hy bhai tum karte kia ho to unko dikhane k liye k hum karte kia hen cc karna parta hy.

  • There could be other (positive) reasons for including management in a communication. This is just way too judgemental and far too negative. From working many years in Pakistan, now st a senior position, I have observed most people are not doing polictics not have any interest in it – we just perceive it that way. There are only a very few such crooks in an organization that everyone knows about.

  • This is very unfortunate, in pakistan, our offices culture is so bad. there is no moral values in our offices. in every office we can witness matters of legpulling, backbiting and undermining our colleagues. in my view these negative things are main cause of our less creativity in our professional fields.


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