Dear Amy: The #SMEtiquette of Holiday E-Cards

If I were a famous international advice columnist, I'd probably hold onto this one until next year, as Easter approached, but I'm not, so I wanted to address this now, as it's a good one to share anytime.Thanks to "Chuck Freleng" for sending in this interesting question last week. Don't forget to submit yours!

Dear Amy:On the Thursday before Easter weekend, I got an email notice with the note "Jacquie Lawson e-cards" as the sender and a subject line saying that "John Q Public" (my financial planner) had sent me an e-card. 

I didn't bother with it, and frankly thought it might have been spam or that his computer might have been spoofed. This morning I got a reminder notice. So I viewed the card. It was 75 seconds of Thomas-Kinkade-esque images suffused with divine light with choral music playing over it, and then a Happy Easter message. 

Here's the deal. 

1) I don't like having to look at Flash-animation greeting cards
2) I'm an atheist. I like the large quantities of chocolate, but beyond that Easter does nothing for me. 
3) If my financial planner is a Christian and this makes him happy, I don't mind that. But I don't need to know that about him.
4) What if I believed in a different faith? 

I don't think I'm going to bother saying anything to him, but as a businessperson, it made me wonder how wise / polite it is to send overtly religious holiday messages via these animated greeting cards. What do you think?- Chuck Freleng

Dear Chuck:Well, here's the thing. It's hard to say someone's not being polite by sending an e-card, even of an overtly religious nature. Wise, however, is another story.First off, let's address the fact that you figured it was spam at first. I've received similar notifications from people and always used to assume it was spam.  Then I got a couple of notifications through LinkedIn and it seemed odd, so I at least checked out the domain the card was being sent from. The domain seemed legit, and then I looked at the card.I was kind of surprised to see that they were legitimate e-cards, as I didn't think people still used those sites. But they do. And yes, often the animation on these cards is in Flash, which is a whole 'nother issue. The more computer-savvy amongst us forget that most people aren't quite the digital snobs we are, and that just because we don't like something doesn't mean that most other people don't.So let that be a lesson to us.However, that seems to be a minor issue you raise, so let's move on to the issue of the card's religious nature.When you're running a business, particularly a service-based business such as financial planning or accounting or the like, where your personal, one-on-one relationship with customers is absolutely vital, it's often a good idea to avoid talking about issues such as politics or religion. They're the kinds of topics that tend to engender strong opinions and feelings. If your client agrees with you, super! If your client doesn't, or is of a different faith and feels uncomfortable about your bringing faith into the conversation, well ... then it might not be such a good idea.It does not appear that you were so uncomfortable that you'll fire Mr. Public for sending you the card. That would be a bit extreme, of course. But if he were to continue to bring up religion at inopportune moments, it could, over time, make you feel uncomfortable and cause you to seek someone who is a bit less pushy with his faith.Now, Easter is the holiest of holidays for Christians, so Mr. Public was probably just trying to share his most important holiday with his clients. It probably didn't occur to him that it wasn't the holiest of holidays to them. Who knows - perhaps he didn't even send the card to clients, if any, whom he knew to be Jewish or Muslim; we don't know the answer to that.I'm glad you aren't going to say anything to him, because you recognize the card was sent out of joy, and not malice. But you are right - people might want to think twice before sending overtly religious cards to clients, unless prepared to deal with the consequences. There could be people among his clientele who are less reasonable than you, and would stop using him for that. Of course, he probably has many clients who truly appreciated the card.The key is knowing your audience and being willing to accept the consequences of not knowing them. There's a good chance that Mr. Public is fully prepared to accept the consequences and would think, "Good riddance" about anyone who left him or got upset over a religious Easter e-card.Honestly, I find it more egregious that he sent an e-card than the fact that it was religious.