Regular visitors to my Simplicity Blog know about my greatest frustration in our new world of e mail communication. I am returning to it again here!Annie and I often discuss why it is that people can be so rude as to ignore an e mail that asks a genuine question. The good news is that all my regular contacts are briliant and reply very quickly so this rant is not aimed at those folks.
Then I wonder whether the problem is mine rather than the other person and whether I am a wee bit obsessional about communication. I admit to being a bit obsessional but on reflection, why should I blame myself for someone else's apalling manners?
I am intrigued why some e mails are not even acknowledged. As I have said many times before that is quite simply bad manners in my opinion. It is like meeting someone down the street, making eye contact, smiling at them and being completely ignored!This weekend for instance I checked my sent folder to chase at least 12 e mails that had not been responded to despite my original e mail asking a question.
An excuse in the in the ‘old days’ was;
“Sorry - your letter must have got lost in the post.”
Now I suppose it is something on the lines of;
‘I didn’t receive your email – it must have gone in my junk folder"
Mmmmmmm …
6 comments:
You can't never be too obsessed with improved communitation.
Good appreciation of yours re. those persons who eventually give up on basic politeness, however that's not our problem I'd say. As for me my taks is continue showing them off what open and effective channels are always that it is on my hand.
When I don't answer, it's because I think I will have to wait until I have more time to answer, but then I never have more time, so then it's a month later and I still haven't answered. Hopefully, I've talked to them by then!
Thanks Omara and Marianne
I cannot understand why some people simply ignore an e mail that has a question in it. I get worried if I have not responded to an e mail within 24 hours.
Sometimes a reply does take some time and we have to reflect before we respond and therefore I do understand there can be a delay. I accept that not everyone is as fast as me in replying. However there really is no excuse for ignoring an e mail with a question in it.
Keep well and keep it simple.
Absolutely, that's the ticket. And apologies,in case one hasn't reply are useful things we didn't mention, did we? :-)
Here is a thought.
One way to improve this for the receiver of any email is to put all emails that need to be answered in a separate mail directory.
As for email senders it may be helpful to make a distinction between emails where you expect an answer and other ones. Preferably a need to be answered email can be identified quite easily (e.g. subject contains something like rsvp, short email no other subjects mentioned.
If you really expect an answer then by all means just include that at the beginning of your email.
Frank
Thanks Frank - very good tips as I would expect from you :-)
You are, of course, right about saying up front ‘please reply’ but it kind of saddens me still that we have to tell people that.
I am only of average intelligence but I can usually work out e mails where the author will expect a reply; those where it is not essential; and those where the author will not expect a reply.
To me the point remains that e mails that should be replied to sometimes do not get replies and I put that down quite often to plain bad manners.
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