The Tyranny of Email

Circuit Breaker writes "Are you or your co-workers using email instead of phone, face to face conversations, or instant messaging? Read this article, and hand out copies to your mates."

Comments

Don't forget to CC their boss....

[Boss, Pointy Haired]

This is the most annoying aspect of email in the workplace. CC'ing somebody's f***** boss as if the recipient is going to think "Ah, he's CC'd my boss, i'd better get a move on with this."

All it does is PISS THEIR BOSS OFF.

And that's only the start of the problem. I have just been involved in a project where a minor issue that could have been resolved between two developers was blown up out of all proportion and resulted in a "crisis meeting" - all because of a reckless CC.

Re:Don't forget to CC their boss....

[Demerara]

All it does is PISS THEIR BOSS OFF
Not necessarily - it depends on the Boss and on the frequency with which the cc: weapon is deployed.
Used sparingly, it can get results. Used all the time, any Boss will glaze over and ignore.
The best place for CC: is in paper documentation - that way, your intended victim BELIEVES that the Boss is getting a copy. But you don't bother to actually send the hard copy to the boss. I recently used this when I wrote the Customer Service Manager of a recalcitrant Telco. I put CC: CEO and showed that I had the CEO's email address on a paper letter. I had FOUR phone calls from senior Telco staff addressing (and, Hurrah!) solving my problem the same day.

email (like anything) can go both ways

[stratjakt]

Where I work, the guy in the office next to me (about 10 feet away) would be the 'primary support' contact. Every once in awhile he'd get a bug report or something that would need to go to me. He'd email it to me. I dont check my email every 30 seconds, so it would basically go unnoticed for hours, maybe even a day or so. If he'd even speak in a normal voice and say "hey, check your email", then I'd know.

He's been since shit-canned, but it was still endlessly annoying to find out about a problem later than it was reported.

However, with our clients, email is the only way I want to handle everything. It provides a written audit trail of everything that happens, and it's come in handy many times.

One client in particular is becoming infamous around here for talking to techies like me on the phone, saying "oh there's nothing wrong, everything is going fine, just a couple really minor issues", and as soon as the phone is hung up, she's talking to the tech director pulling a chicken little act and telling him that the sky is falling and us lazy computer nerds arent saving the day. Luckily he's not enough of a pointy-haired boss to realize she's full of shit.

So, when she calls, I say "put every issue you have in an email". She has no room to lie and tell the boss she reported problem X or Y.

Email vs what?

[MartinG]

The article fails to address one important question IMO.

The fact is that for some people, being contactable is absolutely essensial throughout the working day. Personally, I find myself constantly being asked technical questions about a very wide range of subjects as well as having my own work to do. I have to have give answers at some point or others get no work done. If people want to know how to contact me, I have to tell them something!

By default the majority just pick up the phone and call me. This is an absolute disaster when I am in the middle of debugging some complex problem.

Most of the time now when someone phones with a technical question I ask them if they can send me an email about it. After hearing this several times they usually get the message and stop calling at all in favour of sending emails. This has improved my ability to work no end. I now check and answer emails in batches whenever I have a convenient breaking point.

Email has substantially reduced breaks in my concentration. Exactly the opposite of what the author finds.