4 ms·

In an outlook only company, reactions make a ton of sense. They save tons of "great, thank you " emails. Of course you can still send real thank you emails whe

In an outlook only company, reactions make a ton of sense. They save tons of "great, thank you " emails. Of course you can still send real thank you emails when you're genuinely thankful!

rightbyte 2y ago
The UI to spot the 'reaction' is really bad though. I got a mail to my work Outlook which was some kind of daily digest with the thumbs up.
setopt 2y ago
I’m not an Outlook user, and I really dislike the product. But I wish the feature that you can write say @joel to get someone’s attention in large email threads with too many on CC would have been adopted by more mail clients.
- rob74 2y ago
  I'm a Linux user myself, but I've since given up on using a standalone email client, and just use the Outlook web interface...
  - cynicalsecurity 2y ago
    Thunderbird.
  - graemep 2y ago
    Why? Because of these reactions? I have never seen one myself.
- greggsy 2y ago
  Something like an iMessage of mail. Surely there’s an RFC for that right?
  - Andrex 2y ago
    I've always thought about just making a chat client app using email as the underlying standard. Strip out CSS and signatures (and funnel spam/marketing to a separate UI) and bam, you have possibly the most widely-interoperable chat client ever made. The ostensible "problem" with this would probably be "email is too slow for real-time chat!" But really, how much difference does a few seconds make? And modern connections/tech make me think that idea might have to be reevaluated anyways. It wouldn't be a business but I could see such an app becoming quite popular.
    - raphman 2y ago
      Something like https://delta.chat/ https://delta.chat/ ? There was also a project/protocol called Chat-over-IMAP (COI): https://github.com/coi-dev/coi-specs https://github.com/coi-dev/coi-specs
    - wiktor-k 2y ago
      > I've always thought about just making a chat client app using email as the underlying standard. I'm happy to report that this already exists: https://delta.chat/ https://delta.chat/
  - wiktor-k 2y ago
    > Surely there’s an RFC for that right? Indeed, there is: https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc9078 https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc9078 It's used by Delta Chat (IM over email).
gchamonlive 2y ago
Reactions might make sense in that context because they probably shouldn't be using email for these kinds of exchanges. Related https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28636536 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28636536
- mrspuratic 2y ago
  My mental model is Exchange is a really database, Outlook is a database client, and SMTP is bolted on the side. Things that make sense in the MS ecosystem map poorly onto SMTP/conventional email, but that doesn't stop them foisting it on everyone...
mihaaly 2y ago
Make no fáking sense still receiving those stupid internal emails that 'Your Colleague Joe reacted to your email', and then the reaction is a censored picture of course, because they protect your privacy in the most stupid way saving you from their own reaction picture too. They should use Teams then, MS is in the process implementing untold horror into that one (my unfortunate friend works there) where they could live out nighmarish feature dreams and leave the email for actual content. Or keep all emails inside the company - send out the pigeons! - for f's sake then if they insist emoji based infantile communication.
teeray 2y ago
I literally had to set up a “Congratulations / Congrats” filter to auto-delete those emails because they were so frequent and numerous when various accomplishments across the org were announced. The party popper emoji at least makes that far more tolerable.
- shermantanktop 2y ago
  I read that as “party pooper” - I want that as a reaction emoji.
  - blitzar 2y ago
    Have a few too many drinks at the christmas party and go for it.
    - Arrath 2y ago
      Last year the executives beat everyone to the punch: hard limit of two drinks max from the bar, and you couldn't bring anything in. Party: pooped.
- techdmn 2y ago
  I see a lot of those too, and I am confused at the purpose. Clearly congratulations are warranted, but it would be much less wasteful of everyone's time if those were sent directly to the person being congratulated, rather than to the entire org / company / world. Is this just the sender looking for visibility? Does the recipient appreciate that yet another middle manager CC'd the whole company on a single sentence congratulatory message? Is there some other social function at work here that I don't understand? Sometimes I think it would be funny if all the individual contributors coordinated to ALSO reply-all with "Congratulations", but it would become clear pretty quickly that something was up, and it's a mean thing to do to whomever is being congratulated.
  - tenacious_tuna 2y ago
    I've thought about this a lot in terms of meetings that don't have to be meetings at my org, and I think it's essentially an adherence to protocol that communicates a kind of mutual awareness and respect for the performative expectations everyone is operating under. Put differently, it's a kind of "parliamentary procedure": specific rules and expectations that everyone follows in the workplace to keep things "professional" and streamlined, in terms of interpersonal interactions. You may not actually give a damn about whatever the achievement is of Mx Boss, but you sending a congrats or party-popper emoji is sufficient to acknowledge that Mx Boss has done A Thing that Mx Boss thinks is significant. You may not care at all, but saying that to Mx Boss would have consequences, even if it is the truth that everyone knows. In the context of meetings-that-don't-have-to-be-meetings, it's (cynnically) a kind of show of fealty. I'm talking here about all-hands or whole department meetings, where every talking point is scripted ahead of time and you could pretty much just send the written up notes of what everyone is going to say already as an email and it'd save however many person-hours of work are wasted in just attending the meeting. For a while I was baffled about why our exec suite was okay with losing so much time across the org, then I realized in part it's an assurance of power: they declare a meeting, everyone shows up, and everyone is content within that social contract of how this stuff works. The point of the meeting isn't to convey information efficiently, it's to ensure that the power structure of the organization is functioning as expected.
artisanspam 2y ago
That’s the ideal but it’s not what I’ve observed in practice. In my org, people send reactions and reply all emails like this. It’s just more distraction.
pc86 2y ago
Do people really reply to work emails with just "great, thank you" to the point where it would be distracting (e.g., many people on the email)?
- goosedragons 2y ago
  Yes, sometimes I think it's probably accidental and they hit "reply all" instead of "reply". Some people though I don't think understand the difference between the two...

In an outlook only company, reactions make a ton of sense. They save tons of "great, thank you " emails. Of course you can still send real thank you emails when you're genuinely thankful!

rightbyte 2y ago

The UI to spot the 'reaction' is really bad though. I got a mail to my work Outlook which was some kind of daily digest with the thumbs up.

setopt 2y ago

I’m not an Outlook user, and I really dislike the product. But I wish the feature that you can write say @joel to get someone’s attention in large email threads with too many on CC would have been adopted by more mail clients.

rob74 2y ago
I'm a Linux user myself, but I've since given up on using a standalone email client, and just use the Outlook web interface...
- cynicalsecurity 2y ago
  Thunderbird.
- graemep 2y ago
  Why? Because of these reactions? I have never seen one myself.
greggsy 2y ago
Something like an iMessage of mail. Surely there’s an RFC for that right?
- Andrex 2y ago
  I've always thought about just making a chat client app using email as the underlying standard. Strip out CSS and signatures (and funnel spam/marketing to a separate UI) and bam, you have possibly the most widely-interoperable chat client ever made. The ostensible "problem" with this would probably be "email is too slow for real-time chat!" But really, how much difference does a few seconds make? And modern connections/tech make me think that idea might have to be reevaluated anyways. It wouldn't be a business but I could see such an app becoming quite popular.
  - raphman 2y ago
    Something like https://delta.chat/ https://delta.chat/ ? There was also a project/protocol called Chat-over-IMAP (COI): https://github.com/coi-dev/coi-specs https://github.com/coi-dev/coi-specs
  - wiktor-k 2y ago
    > I've always thought about just making a chat client app using email as the underlying standard. I'm happy to report that this already exists: https://delta.chat/ https://delta.chat/
- wiktor-k 2y ago
  > Surely there’s an RFC for that right? Indeed, there is: https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc9078 https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc9078 It's used by Delta Chat (IM over email).

gchamonlive 2y ago

Reactions might make sense in that context because they probably shouldn't be using email for these kinds of exchanges. Related https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28636536 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28636536

mrspuratic 2y ago
My mental model is Exchange is a really database, Outlook is a database client, and SMTP is bolted on the side. Things that make sense in the MS ecosystem map poorly onto SMTP/conventional email, but that doesn't stop them foisting it on everyone...

mihaaly 2y ago

Make no fáking sense still receiving those stupid internal emails that 'Your Colleague Joe reacted to your email', and then the reaction is a censored picture of course, because they protect your privacy in the most stupid way saving you from their own reaction picture too. They should use Teams then, MS is in the process implementing untold horror into that one (my unfortunate friend works there) where they could live out nighmarish feature dreams and leave the email for actual content. Or keep all emails inside the company - send out the pigeons! - for f's sake then if they insist emoji based infantile communication.

teeray 2y ago

I literally had to set up a “Congratulations / Congrats” filter to auto-delete those emails because they were so frequent and numerous when various accomplishments across the org were announced. The party popper emoji at least makes that far more tolerable.

shermantanktop 2y ago
I read that as “party pooper” - I want that as a reaction emoji.
- blitzar 2y ago
  Have a few too many drinks at the christmas party and go for it.
  - Arrath 2y ago
    Last year the executives beat everyone to the punch: hard limit of two drinks max from the bar, and you couldn't bring anything in. Party: pooped.
techdmn 2y ago
I see a lot of those too, and I am confused at the purpose. Clearly congratulations are warranted, but it would be much less wasteful of everyone's time if those were sent directly to the person being congratulated, rather than to the entire org / company / world. Is this just the sender looking for visibility? Does the recipient appreciate that yet another middle manager CC'd the whole company on a single sentence congratulatory message? Is there some other social function at work here that I don't understand? Sometimes I think it would be funny if all the individual contributors coordinated to ALSO reply-all with "Congratulations", but it would become clear pretty quickly that something was up, and it's a mean thing to do to whomever is being congratulated.
- tenacious_tuna 2y ago
  I've thought about this a lot in terms of meetings that don't have to be meetings at my org, and I think it's essentially an adherence to protocol that communicates a kind of mutual awareness and respect for the performative expectations everyone is operating under. Put differently, it's a kind of "parliamentary procedure": specific rules and expectations that everyone follows in the workplace to keep things "professional" and streamlined, in terms of interpersonal interactions. You may not actually give a damn about whatever the achievement is of Mx Boss, but you sending a congrats or party-popper emoji is sufficient to acknowledge that Mx Boss has done A Thing that Mx Boss thinks is significant. You may not care at all, but saying that to Mx Boss would have consequences, even if it is the truth that everyone knows. In the context of meetings-that-don't-have-to-be-meetings, it's (cynnically) a kind of show of fealty. I'm talking here about all-hands or whole department meetings, where every talking point is scripted ahead of time and you could pretty much just send the written up notes of what everyone is going to say already as an email and it'd save however many person-hours of work are wasted in just attending the meeting. For a while I was baffled about why our exec suite was okay with losing so much time across the org, then I realized in part it's an assurance of power: they declare a meeting, everyone shows up, and everyone is content within that social contract of how this stuff works. The point of the meeting isn't to convey information efficiently, it's to ensure that the power structure of the organization is functioning as expected.

artisanspam 2y ago

That’s the ideal but it’s not what I’ve observed in practice. In my org, people send reactions and reply all emails like this. It’s just more distraction.

pc86 2y ago

Do people really reply to work emails with just "great, thank you" to the point where it would be distracting (e.g., many people on the email)?

goosedragons 2y ago
Yes, sometimes I think it's probably accidental and they hit "reply all" instead of "reply". Some people though I don't think understand the difference between the two...