Over a quarter of men's e-mail jokes fall flat and involve them in lengthy explanations due to "crossed wires".
Women aren't that far behind. One in five women admit their e-mailed jokes have confused their recipients, says a BMRB Omnibus survey for the Department of Trade and Industry.
Men appear to have worse timing than women. Twenty-six per cent of men and 13 percent of women admit that bad timing in sending jokes has created difficulties.
In addition, one in five men said they'd handled sensitive matters badly by e-mail. Only 12 percent of women found that they had made this mistake.
The "trigger-finger problem" still has its place in the e-mail world, the survey reveals. Slightly less than 10 percent of the 1,107 people surveyed admitted they - and presumably their recipients -- had suffered confusion after sending an e-mail to the wrong person.
This data goes a long way towards explaining why people still use traditional methods of communication such as face-to-face meetings and the telephone.
The most frequent means of communication with colleagues is face-to-face, with 58 percent of people claiming to use it, while 28 per cent prefer the phone. Communication with customers is carried out 42 percent of the time through face-to-face encounters and 38 percent by phone.
The survey was released by the Department of Trade and Industry just as the 1 October deadline approaches for all businesses to establish statutory minimum dismissal and disciplinary procedures.
Encouraging communication is a key issue for the department. In over a third of the 115,000 work dispute cases that hit Employment Tribunals, the individuals and managers involved have not discussed the case at all.
