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I am not young, and I do better with asynchronous communication. I don't mind chatting on the phone when it makes sense to, but I generally prefer email; it giv

I am not young, and I do better with asynchronous communication. I don't mind chatting on the phone when it makes sense to, but I generally prefer email; it gives me time to think through what I want to say and make sure it's communicated correctly. On the phone, I wind up going silent for a minute to think things through, and other people get uncomfortable because of the silence. Worth noting, it's not about social skills. It's about having the time to fully think through a complex issue and the information related to it. That just isn't possible during a synchronous conversation. You wind up having meetings where the things that get decided aren't the right things because people didn't have time to actually think through all the factors involved.

sak5sk 7y ago
Sometimes it takes longer than a few minutes to think about something. I often write out my messages and not send them. Sleep on it, come back and delete to write something better. I've found myself in many situations where sleeping on an issue provides a much better, thorough and more clever solution than just blasting off an email. If I were to provide responses face to face, there's a good chance I'd be giving bad advice that may cost companies a lot of money.
jakubp 7y ago
If you are on a team, and you know you need time & space to think things through, they should know it too (from you). It's your job to tell them, no? Then they either respect that and give you time when you need it, or don't. If they do, no issue. If they don't, they are going to go around you anyway whether you like it or not... just how work works.