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When Can I Expect an Email Response?
An anonymous reader writes "Ever sit there waiting for an email response and wonder what's going on? Did they get it? Did it get filtered? A study looks at the responding habits of a large group of corporate users. They find, among other things, that users would try to 'project a responsiveness image. For example, sending a short reply if a complete reply might take longer than usual, intentionally delaying a reply to make themselves seem busy, or planning out timing strategies for email with read receipts.' Tit-for-tat, 'Users would try to reciprocate email behaviors -- responding quickly to people who responded quickly to them, and lowering their responsiveness to people who responded slowly to them in the past.'"
...anymore. you never respond to my comments.
"If you don't have eyes you shouldn't have wings" -- Carl Pilkington
I just the other day got...an internet was sent by my staff at 10 o'clock in the morning on Friday, I got it yesterday.-Ted Stevens, honorable US Senator from Alasak
See, it's not that people time e-mails to make themselves look busy, it's that the tubes get full!
sigfault. core dumped.
The first comment to the article on that page is awesome and must be shared:
some additional behaviors that I've seen while working at a 30+ person startup:
- certain people respond to all emails in person, by getting up to talk to them or yelling across cubicles
- certain people prefer to communicate by email even when the recipient is sitting right next to them
- there is another group of people who send very few work-related emails, but who send interesting and/or funny emails to the entire company now and then.
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
"Email means that someone can ignore you instantly"... this after sending 25 emails and making 10 phone calls to someone else in the organization, and that person's supervisor, and the supervisor's supervisor.
"Can of worms? The can is open... the worms are everywhere."
One thing that contributes to that is Lotus Freaking Notes' brilliant feature of checking email, putting up an alert when you get new mail BUT NOT ACTUALLY DISPLAYING IT IN YOUR INBOX, thus forcing you to break your activity to make sure it's not something that can't be ignored.
As with much of Lotus Freaking Notes, this is a) an interface issue that was ironed out by the rest of the developer world 20 years ago and b) would have taken maybe 15 seconds longer to code properly than it did to do it wretchedly.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
At my company, almost everything is done by email. Most messages are responded to nearly immediately, and so everybody's expectation is that email is more of a conversation than something that will be looked at in 24 hours (may as well be 24 years).
Of course, little actually gets done since interruptions are contstant. Seriously, probably 2/3 of my time is allocated to just sending and receiving emails. And I work in a major, highly profitable company. I just don't understand how we do it.
"If I could live to be several hundred
I could take a walk and really wander, really wonder."
Thanks for sending me an email. I'm taking a short break today, Wednesday 8/30. In my absence, please talk to KaraM about the MxTK project, JuhnA for workflow issues, or HiuS for general questions.
Which is fine. It means he is concentrating on the task at hand and not being easily distracted.
If you need an immediate answer, why the hell are you resorting to email? There is no reliable way to even be sure that he received your message, let alone that he is going to read it right away or take the time to addesss it.
If you need an answer for something, never rely on email. It is great for "please review the attached doc and get back to me by Friday" (if followed up with a phone call before Friday) or "FYI" stuff. But it isn't a substitute for a phone call (which may still be shunted to voice mail), or a physical visit if the person is close enough.
I've massively cut back my response times to email, and deliberately so. Maybe five times a day I'll go through and reply now, sometimes maybe three.
Instant messenger I tend to reply to...well...instantly. Even if it's only to say that I'll have to answer in a couple of minutes. Your best bet for getting hold of me is a phone message. Why will sound familiar to many. I was getting so distracted and interrupted by email that I turned off any notification that I'd received any. From then on, I found I was able to concentrate on my work a lot more.
What's been interesting is that people I regularly correspond with have noticed this and fitted in with the pattern fine. I don't think they've consciously done it - they've clearly learned how to get hold of me if they need to, and what kind of response times to expect otherwise. It's beneficial all round really - the key is that the two methods of getting hold of me quickly are interactive methods - phone or IM. This cuts down misunderstandings, stops people wasting time formulating the perfect email to send me because they can just get through it in a normal conversational style, adds informality as we're able to use a spot of humour whilst discussing whatever needs doing...it's just better. IRC aside, flamewars are more common in email than in IM. And phone-based flamewars? When's the last time you ever heard of one, if ever? Personal contact always mitigates such behaviour.
So email is no longer a quick way to reach me at work. It's a conscious choice, and it's worked out absolutely fine.
Cheers,
Ian
I'm surprised they didn't mention the people who are black holes. You send them emails, they read them, but they do nothing until you walk over there and prod them to see if they have read it and only then will they give you an answer.
I've tried all sorts of things to coax an answer out of people like this through email... writing shorter messages which only ask one yes/no question, writing longer ones, etc etc nothing I try seems to be able to make them type that damn reply.
you never respond to my comments.
You only give me your funny mod points...
By summer it was all gone...now shesmovedon. --
I like to copy the text from a read receipt and then send a dozen or so messages containing that text to the sender over the next 30 minutes. : p
This guy's the limit!
The same applies to improtance. ohh yea, the importance flag in outlook is of no use whatsoever because an emergency on your part, doesnt' mean an emergency on mine, unless your a client in which case see above.
Agh! E-mail "priorities". In my experience, anything marked "!" important was absolutely not important at all. I used to work for a company where some people would set that on every single e-mail they sent, no matter the content. I ignored it for a while, and then I set a casual rule for myself that anything with a little red exclamation mark next to it got ignored for 10 minutes minimum. Still, it annoyed me, so I made inbox rules to reverse any priorities (setting e-mails marked "low" to "high" and vice versa).
That was all well and good until my boss walked by and noticed all his e-mails were marked low priority. "Oh... huh, you didn't set them low priority? I just thought you were being considerate to my schedule. Must be some kinda bug!"
We're the Cut'n'paste generation. We don't really think about what we write before putting 'pen to paper' anymore for the following reasons:
1. You can cut'n'paste you sentances to make some resemblance of ordered thought.
2. You can get a quick response, so if you're imprecise, you'll know about it quicker.
So basically latency has plummeted, but we're probably less efficient at doing things than we used to be before all this 'new fangled technology'.
Am I going to read this comment through? Do a spellcheck? nope, I'm going to spin in out, with it's imprecision, flaws and ambiguity, for I know that someone else will pick up on those point very rapidly and therefore I do not need to bother...
Hi Eln,
Thanks so much for your prompt response. This is now urgent! I'm cc'ing all of the dev managers and the VPs of developments so that we can all track your responses to this issue. Please respond to all ASAP!!!
Oh, can we set up a meeting tonight at 8pm to discuss your findings? I've added this to everyone's calendar - I realize that this is short notice, but attendance is mandatory.
If anyone has any thoughts, ideas, random musings, opinions, or collateral information please respond.
Thanks everyone!
Bob
Senior SCSSACP
TPS report generation, QLDT division
AGAAP
email: bob@corp.com
fax: 1-212-212-1212
Mobile: 1-212-212-1223
Telex: TP-10925645
Pager: bob7979797@pagingservice.com
GPS coordinates: N36 06.285', W114 46.655'
IM: hotlovr69@msn.com
What I'm currently listening to: Mr. T - Respect yo Mama
The opinions epressed in the above email represent my opinion and do not represent the opinion of my company or management. This communication from corp.com may contain forward looking statements or confidential information and must not be forwarded or archived.
--
THIS MESSAGE WAS SENT FROM MY BLACKBERRY
--
THIS MESSAGE HAS BEEN SCANNED BY AVG-PRO AND FOUND TO BE VIRUS FREE
I write code for a living. My mail-box has typical content like:
Trust me, I often don't get around coding as much as I'd want to myself.
I think we can keep recursing like this until someone returns 1