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I've never been as busy as the past 4 months. I don't reply to emails that requires lengthy text. If I can reply by "Yes", "No" or any of the derivatives then y

I've never been as busy as the past 4 months. I don't reply to emails that requires lengthy text. If I can reply by "Yes", "No" or any of the derivatives then you'll get an answer from me. If you have a problem, what do you think is the solution? If you need something, what exactly do you need? You want to contact me, what's your phone number and when are you available? You don't feel great, why? How can we solve the problem? It's super important to not hurt people feelings and speak right and that takes a lot of my time (especially as a non-native English speaker.) On the other end I commit to read every emails.

johansch 10y ago
After 20 years of working I've learned: answer quickly (to the emails that you intend to reply to) even if the only thing you can say is "I have read this and will get back to you". I used to fuzz and wait until I had the ultimate, perfect reply.. usually like 12-48 hours later. Turns out that is the wrong approach - for the reasons outlined in this article. > On the other end I commit to read every emails. That was my defense too! I iterated it over and over to my team (my bosses would get preferential treatment...), but noone would believe me - unless I responded. People tend not to believe invisible things.
- johansch 10y ago
  Actually, this would be a neat function in a mail client. Let's call it "Not now" - an action that: a) pre-composes a reply with a canned response (but lets you edit it) b) reminds you if you don't end up replying within some time (perhaps even parses that time out of what you ended up writing in that response)
  - DenisM 10y ago
    Didn't they add "snooze" button in Gmail recently?
    - johansch 10y ago
      https://support.google.com/inbox/answer/6067583?hl=en https://support.google.com/inbox/answer/6067583?hl=en Seems like it only does the reminder part though.
- robotresearcher 10y ago
  This is a good strategy, and even better if you tell them when to expect a proper reply (and then you stick to it). That really helps the sender make plans at their end, and thus reduce their stress.
  - johansch 10y ago
    I also, perhaps a little surprising (but not really), found that it reduced my own stress as well.
- http-teapot 10y ago
  That makes sense, I think acknowledging with a "thank you" could go a long way. Not a big fan of committing to get back to the subject since it'd just delay the inevitable and possibly pile up onto a huge pile of todos. I guess there are sometimes no way around it.
themodelplumber 10y ago
> If you have a problem, what do you think is the solution? If you need something, what exactly do you need? You want to contact me, what's your phone number and when are you available? You don't feel great, why? How can we solve the problem? These are going to seem constructive criticisms for people with whom you share communications preferences. That ought to be a lot of the people who read HN. Information-driven people, in a sense. Outside of that group, good luck if you ever have a boss or colleague who prefers rapport and empathetic communication over the more direct, rational style you prefer. You are going to continually wonder why that boss expects you to read their mind. They are going to continually wonder why you can't consider others' needs from time to time, and put yourself in their shoes. A tough reality for those with a strong "just the facts" bias, but a commitment to read every email is laughable in this context. Without stepping outside of your comfort zone and learning to accommodate different communication styles, you are vulnerable to the sort of emotion-driven problems that come crashing down right at the most inconvenient time.
- Declanomous 10y ago
  >Good luck if you ever have a boss or a colleague who prefers rapport and empathetic communication over the more direct, rational style you prefer. You are going to continually wonder why that boss expects you to read their mind. That hit home for me. I once got called down to HR to find my boss there. I discovered at that moment that she was frustrated with how long it was taking me to do my job. Part of my job is pulling data for mailings out of our database. We have ~1 million constituents, and regularly send mailings with tens of thousands of recipients. She had performed that role before me, and she felt that it could be done much more quickly that I was performing it. Turns out, I could perform the task as quickly as she expected, but I had totally misunderstood a conversation we had months earlier. Word had gotten to my boss that a person had called in because of a factual error on a piece of mail we had sent them. She came by my desk and asked me about the error, as I had specifically said the file was 99.5% error free. I mentioned that the incorrect information had been put in the database by someone else, and the error rate was about what I had expected. She told me that she wanted 99.9% error free mailings from then on. Later on, I sent her data for another mailing. She came by my desk and asked if the data was 100% correct. I said I was confident it was 99.9% correct. She said we couldn't have any errors this time, and we needed to make sure that the data was 100% correct. I told her that it was fundamentally impossible to be 100% sure the data was correct. She said that she understood, but she wanted it 99.99% correct, as we couldn't mail constituents information that was wrong. I said it would probably take 10x longer to run the data, but I could do that if she wanted it. She did, so I proceeded to make sure the data was 99.99% correct. She was absolutely flabbergasted when I brought these conversations up. To her, she thought 100% confidence meant "pretty damn sure" and 99% confidence was somewhere around "It's probably right, maybe." From my perspective, 99.5% correct meant we'd have 5 or fewer bad rows for every 1000 rows in the data. It was so weird for both of us, because we both thought we had been incredibly clear with the other person. I thought I had been very clear with my point -- I had spoken with her about how long it would take to ensure the data was 99.99% correct several times, because I was concerned about the delay. She had thought she was being emphatic, ad I was just being a pain in the ass. The thing is, that I'm generally not particularly hung up on the difference between literal meaning and figurative meaning, and she generally pretty clear when expressing what she wanted in technical conversations without hyperbole. So she hadn't even considered that I was interpreting her comments literally, and I hadn't considered that she was being hyperbolic. It was definitely a huge learning experience for both of us. We had both been really stressed for months because we failed to communicate effectively with one another, despite both of us recognizing the same problem and trying to bring it to the other person's attention.

johansch 10y ago

After 20 years of working I've learned: answer quickly (to the emails that you intend to reply to) even if the only thing you can say is "I have read this and will get back to you". I used to fuzz and wait until I had the ultimate, perfect reply.. usually like 12-48 hours later. Turns out that is the wrong approach - for the reasons outlined in this article. > On the other end I commit to read every emails. That was my defense too! I iterated it over and over to my team (my bosses would get preferential treatment...), but noone would believe me - unless I responded. People tend not to believe invisible things.

johansch 10y ago
Actually, this would be a neat function in a mail client. Let's call it "Not now" - an action that: a) pre-composes a reply with a canned response (but lets you edit it) b) reminds you if you don't end up replying within some time (perhaps even parses that time out of what you ended up writing in that response)
- DenisM 10y ago
  Didn't they add "snooze" button in Gmail recently?
  - johansch 10y ago
    https://support.google.com/inbox/answer/6067583?hl=en https://support.google.com/inbox/answer/6067583?hl=en Seems like it only does the reminder part though.
robotresearcher 10y ago
This is a good strategy, and even better if you tell them when to expect a proper reply (and then you stick to it). That really helps the sender make plans at their end, and thus reduce their stress.
- johansch 10y ago
  I also, perhaps a little surprising (but not really), found that it reduced my own stress as well.
http-teapot 10y ago
That makes sense, I think acknowledging with a "thank you" could go a long way. Not a big fan of committing to get back to the subject since it'd just delay the inevitable and possibly pile up onto a huge pile of todos. I guess there are sometimes no way around it.

themodelplumber 10y ago

> If you have a problem, what do you think is the solution? If you need something, what exactly do you need? You want to contact me, what's your phone number and when are you available? You don't feel great, why? How can we solve the problem? These are going to seem constructive criticisms for people with whom you share communications preferences. That ought to be a lot of the people who read HN. Information-driven people, in a sense. Outside of that group, good luck if you ever have a boss or colleague who prefers rapport and empathetic communication over the more direct, rational style you prefer. You are going to continually wonder why that boss expects you to read their mind. They are going to continually wonder why you can't consider others' needs from time to time, and put yourself in their shoes. A tough reality for those with a strong "just the facts" bias, but a commitment to read every email is laughable in this context. Without stepping outside of your comfort zone and learning to accommodate different communication styles, you are vulnerable to the sort of emotion-driven problems that come crashing down right at the most inconvenient time.

Declanomous 10y ago
>Good luck if you ever have a boss or a colleague who prefers rapport and empathetic communication over the more direct, rational style you prefer. You are going to continually wonder why that boss expects you to read their mind. That hit home for me. I once got called down to HR to find my boss there. I discovered at that moment that she was frustrated with how long it was taking me to do my job. Part of my job is pulling data for mailings out of our database. We have ~1 million constituents, and regularly send mailings with tens of thousands of recipients. She had performed that role before me, and she felt that it could be done much more quickly that I was performing it. Turns out, I could perform the task as quickly as she expected, but I had totally misunderstood a conversation we had months earlier. Word had gotten to my boss that a person had called in because of a factual error on a piece of mail we had sent them. She came by my desk and asked me about the error, as I had specifically said the file was 99.5% error free. I mentioned that the incorrect information had been put in the database by someone else, and the error rate was about what I had expected. She told me that she wanted 99.9% error free mailings from then on. Later on, I sent her data for another mailing. She came by my desk and asked if the data was 100% correct. I said I was confident it was 99.9% correct. She said we couldn't have any errors this time, and we needed to make sure that the data was 100% correct. I told her that it was fundamentally impossible to be 100% sure the data was correct. She said that she understood, but she wanted it 99.99% correct, as we couldn't mail constituents information that was wrong. I said it would probably take 10x longer to run the data, but I could do that if she wanted it. She did, so I proceeded to make sure the data was 99.99% correct. She was absolutely flabbergasted when I brought these conversations up. To her, she thought 100% confidence meant "pretty damn sure" and 99% confidence was somewhere around "It's probably right, maybe." From my perspective, 99.5% correct meant we'd have 5 or fewer bad rows for every 1000 rows in the data. It was so weird for both of us, because we both thought we had been incredibly clear with the other person. I thought I had been very clear with my point -- I had spoken with her about how long it would take to ensure the data was 99.99% correct several times, because I was concerned about the delay. She had thought she was being emphatic, ad I was just being a pain in the ass. The thing is, that I'm generally not particularly hung up on the difference between literal meaning and figurative meaning, and she generally pretty clear when expressing what she wanted in technical conversations without hyperbole. So she hadn't even considered that I was interpreting her comments literally, and I hadn't considered that she was being hyperbolic. It was definitely a huge learning experience for both of us. We had both been really stressed for months because we failed to communicate effectively with one another, despite both of us recognizing the same problem and trying to bring it to the other person's attention.