5 ms·

E-mail was always asynchronous communication tool. For people who like to see waving three dots in iPhone chat, e-mailing makes them anxious. So I understand t

by sixtyj 8mo ago

E-mail was always asynchronous communication tool. For people who like to see waving three dots in iPhone chat, e-mailing makes them anxious. So I understand that apology is quite normal. It is a sort of generational difference, imho.

gchamonlive 8mo ago
Chats are ambiguous because it functions both as sync and async. I treat my whatsapp messages as async, but time and again I get heat from people because I take too long to reply, something I'll never feel the urge to apologize for.
- coldpie 8mo ago
  I see this in the opposite direction at work. I'll send someone a chat message after their working hours and they'll actually reply apologizing that can't look now and will reply tomorrow. Or that they're just waking up and they'll look later today. Yeah, that's what I expect, I'm not your boss asking you to come in on a Saturday. Why on earth are you looking at your work chat outside of your work hours anyway??
  - nomagicbullet 8mo ago
    They could be giving you a subtle hint to not send messages outside of work hours.
    - coldpie 8mo ago
      I don't know their working hours, we've got staff all over the globe and people work whatever hours they like. I have no expectation for anyone to check work communications outside of their working hours, and it's bonkers to me that people think anyone would have that expectation.
    - prmoustache 8mo ago
      That's weird. When I am off, I don't read those messages anyway. Who would be checking at their messages AND be annoyed at receiving them?
- vel0city 8mo ago
  Reply time to instant messages is extremely context sensitive. If I'm having a chat catching up with an old friend I haven't talked with much in a while, I might take several hours to a day or two to write the next message. If I take a day or two to reply to my spouse's inquiry of "what is the plan for dinner tonight?" or "you need to pick up the kids from school today, ok?" I'll have some problems!
  - gchamonlive 8mo ago
    Your kids getting picked up shouldn't depend on you seeing an instant message, that should probably be agreed upon the previous day. Sure, emergencies happen, in which case you can't really be held responsible. But if that happens more often than not, that's bad parenting. Or maybe your agreement with your spouse is to communicate over instant message about managing these daily tasks, in which case it's ok, but you better crank that notification sound all the way to 11 LOL
    - vel0city 8mo ago
      Ok, feel free to rephrase "you need to" to "will you", and have the only real reason why you didn't respond be because you just didn't feel like responding at that moment. It'll still be frustrating having the other party just be willfully absent to the conversation. My point is, there are types of messages which are highly time sensitive to the point where the response is meaningless past a certain point, and to many in this day and age instant messaging is the format for such inquiries to be made. Sure, one could be busy and be unable to respond, and one should be understanding of that. But it the reason why my spouse was unreachable was because they didn't bother responding to me at that moment to an obviously important time critical message we've got some problems in our relationship to figure out.
      - gchamonlive 8mo ago
        > My point is, there are types of messages which are highly time sensitive to the point where the response is meaningless past a certain point Ah yes, understood. That makes total sense. In fact I was thinking about a practical system that could be used to bypass silent modes and do not disturb configs for such emergencies. Back when MSN was a thing you had a buzz button that would play an alarm, vibrate the chat window and steal the window focus. It was as amusing as it was annoying, but there are practical uses for this.
squeefers 8mo ago
written letters are asynchronous but people expected timely (relative to snail mail) replies even back then.
- nmcfarl 8mo ago
  I am pretty sure this is not true. I recall my mother’s family conversing via mail in the early 80’s - and she would write one 10 page letter a month as a reply (max) - that would 3 or 4 mails a year with any particular sibling (and probably 1 phone call - but phone calls to alaska were expensive, and you wouldn’t say all you wanted to).
  - squeefers 8mo ago
    > I recall my mother’s family conversing via mail in the early 80’s im talking about business not grandma
randusername 8mo ago
> generational difference I feel squeezed in the middle between antsy-verbose zoomer emailers and terse boomer emailers that hit me with ambiguous 5 word replies or those godforsaken emojii email reacts. My decree is that 95% of emails should be three sentences double-spaced. 5% should be paragraphs. Hypertext is permissible almost entirely because of quote formatting, which should be used liberally so that each email is as self-contained as possible.
- 1313ed01 8mo ago
  You do not need hypertext to prefix lines with "> ".
- Sharlin 8mo ago
  Verbose zoomers and super-terse boomers? I'd expect the opposite, if anything.
washadjeffmad 8mo ago
I took a day off texting to sleep and recover from an injury, and the woman I was seeing (in her 30s) threatened to delete our chat because she assume I was mad and ignoring her. She's part of a certain digital generation, and expectations change. A younger PM I'm working with right now emailed me twice in a few hours because I didn't immediately sign into their management platform after our 4pm meeting. Granted, that's her job, but the project doesn't officially start for a few more months.
- em-bee 8mo ago
  i'd try to find out what is behind the reaction of the woman you are seeing. threatening to break up is in itself unhealthy for any relationship. if my partner thinks it is ok to make such threats then i'd end the relationship right there. if we are married then the next step is marriage counceling.
  - throwway120385 8mo ago
    That's a really rigid way of thinking about it. Relationships are a negotiation, and if you stay in a committed one long enough you're going to find yourselves navigating some of these issues. If I'd only been seeing someone for a few weeks and their usual pattern was constant, immediate contact I'd assume there was something wrong. Some people tend to assume further that the problem is their fault. But that's a conversation you can have with your SO without giving them a counter-ultimatum.
    - em-bee 8mo ago
      assuming something wrong is fine, even getting upset is ok, feeling hurt, and expressing that is also ok, it's a misunderstanding after all. these things happen. but the next step is to talk about it. what is wrong is to immediately threaten to breakup without finding out what the problem is. if you are sending me a message that says: answer or i'll delete this chat, which means break up, and i am not even able to see the message, let alone respond, so i have no clue whats going on, then i effectively learn that you don't trust me and that you'll assume the worst whenever something happens. that's a character trait that i can't handle. which means we are not fit to be together. you are right, as in your other comment that this depends on established communication patterns, and if i know that my partner gets anxious when i don't respond quickly enough then, like you suggest i'd let my partner know in advance. but you could also have a situation where you can't do that. the phone breaks, you get into an accident, or you are so sick or tired that you fall asleep before you have a chance to send a message... i would not respond with a counter-ultimatum. that's the thing. ultimatums should never be used in a relationship. breaking up is a step i would take after the conversation, if i come to the conclusion that my partner thinks it is ok to threaten me like that. i had a partner do that to me three times over the course of half a year. after the third time i had enough. i realized that this is part of her usual behavior, and she will continue doing that whenever something upsets her to much. she refused counseling too. so i said good bye, we are not fit for each other. i never threatened to leave myself. i tried to find out what is upsetting her and resolve it. i had to realize that this was part of her character and that i would not be able to keep going. i had no motivation to try to change her. that's generally futile anyways.
Juliate 8mo ago
Everything is asynchronous but face-to-face, phone and video call. I cut every communication tool settings that enable online status or "typing..." information. It sets unreasonable expectations no one should have (but in contextual requests on the spot).

by sixtyj 8mo ago

gchamonlive 8mo ago

Chats are ambiguous because it functions both as sync and async. I treat my whatsapp messages as async, but time and again I get heat from people because I take too long to reply, something I'll never feel the urge to apologize for.

coldpie 8mo ago
I see this in the opposite direction at work. I'll send someone a chat message after their working hours and they'll actually reply apologizing that can't look now and will reply tomorrow. Or that they're just waking up and they'll look later today. Yeah, that's what I expect, I'm not your boss asking you to come in on a Saturday. Why on earth are you looking at your work chat outside of your work hours anyway??
- nomagicbullet 8mo ago
  They could be giving you a subtle hint to not send messages outside of work hours.
  - coldpie 8mo ago
    I don't know their working hours, we've got staff all over the globe and people work whatever hours they like. I have no expectation for anyone to check work communications outside of their working hours, and it's bonkers to me that people think anyone would have that expectation.
  - prmoustache 8mo ago
    That's weird. When I am off, I don't read those messages anyway. Who would be checking at their messages AND be annoyed at receiving them?
vel0city 8mo ago
Reply time to instant messages is extremely context sensitive. If I'm having a chat catching up with an old friend I haven't talked with much in a while, I might take several hours to a day or two to write the next message. If I take a day or two to reply to my spouse's inquiry of "what is the plan for dinner tonight?" or "you need to pick up the kids from school today, ok?" I'll have some problems!
- gchamonlive 8mo ago
  Your kids getting picked up shouldn't depend on you seeing an instant message, that should probably be agreed upon the previous day. Sure, emergencies happen, in which case you can't really be held responsible. But if that happens more often than not, that's bad parenting. Or maybe your agreement with your spouse is to communicate over instant message about managing these daily tasks, in which case it's ok, but you better crank that notification sound all the way to 11 LOL
  - vel0city 8mo ago
    Ok, feel free to rephrase "you need to" to "will you", and have the only real reason why you didn't respond be because you just didn't feel like responding at that moment. It'll still be frustrating having the other party just be willfully absent to the conversation. My point is, there are types of messages which are highly time sensitive to the point where the response is meaningless past a certain point, and to many in this day and age instant messaging is the format for such inquiries to be made. Sure, one could be busy and be unable to respond, and one should be understanding of that. But it the reason why my spouse was unreachable was because they didn't bother responding to me at that moment to an obviously important time critical message we've got some problems in our relationship to figure out.
    - gchamonlive 8mo ago
      > My point is, there are types of messages which are highly time sensitive to the point where the response is meaningless past a certain point Ah yes, understood. That makes total sense. In fact I was thinking about a practical system that could be used to bypass silent modes and do not disturb configs for such emergencies. Back when MSN was a thing you had a buzz button that would play an alarm, vibrate the chat window and steal the window focus. It was as amusing as it was annoying, but there are practical uses for this.

squeefers 8mo ago

written letters are asynchronous but people expected timely (relative to snail mail) replies even back then.

nmcfarl 8mo ago
I am pretty sure this is not true. I recall my mother’s family conversing via mail in the early 80’s - and she would write one 10 page letter a month as a reply (max) - that would 3 or 4 mails a year with any particular sibling (and probably 1 phone call - but phone calls to alaska were expensive, and you wouldn’t say all you wanted to).
- squeefers 8mo ago
  > I recall my mother’s family conversing via mail in the early 80’s im talking about business not grandma

randusername 8mo ago

> generational difference I feel squeezed in the middle between antsy-verbose zoomer emailers and terse boomer emailers that hit me with ambiguous 5 word replies or those godforsaken emojii email reacts. My decree is that 95% of emails should be three sentences double-spaced. 5% should be paragraphs. Hypertext is permissible almost entirely because of quote formatting, which should be used liberally so that each email is as self-contained as possible.

1313ed01 8mo ago
You do not need hypertext to prefix lines with "> ".
Sharlin 8mo ago
Verbose zoomers and super-terse boomers? I'd expect the opposite, if anything.

washadjeffmad 8mo ago

I took a day off texting to sleep and recover from an injury, and the woman I was seeing (in her 30s) threatened to delete our chat because she assume I was mad and ignoring her. She's part of a certain digital generation, and expectations change. A younger PM I'm working with right now emailed me twice in a few hours because I didn't immediately sign into their management platform after our 4pm meeting. Granted, that's her job, but the project doesn't officially start for a few more months.

em-bee 8mo ago
i'd try to find out what is behind the reaction of the woman you are seeing. threatening to break up is in itself unhealthy for any relationship. if my partner thinks it is ok to make such threats then i'd end the relationship right there. if we are married then the next step is marriage counceling.
- throwway120385 8mo ago
  That's a really rigid way of thinking about it. Relationships are a negotiation, and if you stay in a committed one long enough you're going to find yourselves navigating some of these issues. If I'd only been seeing someone for a few weeks and their usual pattern was constant, immediate contact I'd assume there was something wrong. Some people tend to assume further that the problem is their fault. But that's a conversation you can have with your SO without giving them a counter-ultimatum.
  - em-bee 8mo ago
    assuming something wrong is fine, even getting upset is ok, feeling hurt, and expressing that is also ok, it's a misunderstanding after all. these things happen. but the next step is to talk about it. what is wrong is to immediately threaten to breakup without finding out what the problem is. if you are sending me a message that says: answer or i'll delete this chat, which means break up, and i am not even able to see the message, let alone respond, so i have no clue whats going on, then i effectively learn that you don't trust me and that you'll assume the worst whenever something happens. that's a character trait that i can't handle. which means we are not fit to be together. you are right, as in your other comment that this depends on established communication patterns, and if i know that my partner gets anxious when i don't respond quickly enough then, like you suggest i'd let my partner know in advance. but you could also have a situation where you can't do that. the phone breaks, you get into an accident, or you are so sick or tired that you fall asleep before you have a chance to send a message... i would not respond with a counter-ultimatum. that's the thing. ultimatums should never be used in a relationship. breaking up is a step i would take after the conversation, if i come to the conclusion that my partner thinks it is ok to threaten me like that. i had a partner do that to me three times over the course of half a year. after the third time i had enough. i realized that this is part of her usual behavior, and she will continue doing that whenever something upsets her to much. she refused counseling too. so i said good bye, we are not fit for each other. i never threatened to leave myself. i tried to find out what is upsetting her and resolve it. i had to realize that this was part of her character and that i would not be able to keep going. i had no motivation to try to change her. that's generally futile anyways.

Juliate 8mo ago

Everything is asynchronous but face-to-face, phone and video call. I cut every communication tool settings that enable online status or "typing..." information. It sets unreasonable expectations no one should have (but in contextual requests on the spot).