5 ms·

Disruptions: It is rude to send a "Thank You" e-mail.

13 points by nickbilton 14y ago

Some people are so rude. Really, who sends an e-mail or text message that just says “Thank you”?

jerrya 14y ago
Fwiw, I'm in the habit of sending thank you emails but I always change the subject from: Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit to Re: Lorem ipsum dolor sit -- Thanks! (On disqusish comment systems, I often upvote a reply to suggest I saw it rather than reply once more.)
hsmyers 14y ago
Another haxor wannabe (regardless of his age) using tech as an excuse to be rude. Kinda like programmers and their endless complaint about documentation :)
tedchs 14y ago
Are people getting so many 2-word "thank you" emails a day to show this article has a valid point? Don't get me wrong, sending merely "thank you" as a reply-all to a 200-person recipient list is one of the biggest email sins. But as a unicast, it serves the purpose of acknowledging receipt. If it was worth sending, it was worth knowing it was received, understood, and appreciated.
- webwanderings 14y ago
  I think you're missing the point. Sending a thank-you note to a 200-person list is a waste of time and rude to those who don't send such notes at every occasion. If you need acknowledgement than what's better than knowing that other person has read your email? (the default behavior of Facebook messages by the way). It is however another matter if the person who read your email decide to not reply back. I think this article makes a lot of sense.
schmrz 14y ago
My mother realized this long ago. Now we communicate mostly through Twitter. My first impression was that this is just sad but I guess that different people (and cultures) have different expectations when it comes to communication. With that said, the author is living inside a bubble created by his environment and his expectations. Saying that everyone should conform to his way of communicating is rude. Saying "thank you" to someone (through whatever communication channel you find most appropriate) is generally not rude.
davidmr 14y ago
Maybe this is why the people I interview almost never send us thank you notes. Here I thought it was just a general decline in etiquette, but they're really just being respectful of our time! Seriously though, I'm curious how many people send thank you emails (or even cards) after an interview. I was always taught that it was extremely rude not to do this, but I'd say as a conservative estimate, we get thank you e-mails after less than 1 of every 10 interviews.
- xur17 14y ago
  I thought it was standard practice to send thank you emails or cards after an interview. I figured some people forgot, etc, but 1 out of 10 is a lot lower then I expected. Honestly, it only takes a few minutes to write a simple thank you note and send it, so there's no excuse not to.
- incongruity 14y ago
  Interesting. I'm recently out of graduate school and I've been interviewing for full-time positions recently. I send a thank you email 8-24 hours after every interview, with very few exceptions. In contrast, I've been surprised/disappointed by the general vibe I've gotten in the interview process with a number of employers, large and small. Put most simply, there's little respect shown for candidates' time or situation. (This has been echoed through watching other classmates' experiences as well, so it's not just me being a low-value candidate) The specifics vary, but it always clearly a one sided interaction and little effort is put in to relations with potential employees except for the most high-profile, rock star candidates. To me, that seems to be a serious failing - I appreciate the mindset that says you should treat employees with the same mindset that guides your interactions with customers - especially in high-talent or high customer contact industries where employee satisfaction translates quickly into real business value. So, I guess my point is that I feel the job search process reveals more about society in general when viewed from both sides. Still, I will always send the thank you notes. I figure the place I want to work is one that appreciates the small gestures as well as the big ones...
  - greenyoda 14y ago
incongruity 14y ago
Apologies, but I'm shocked by the self-centered, entitled crap I see here; most if not all of those annecdotes speak to the self-important, self-absorbed nature of modern society. (Side note: this isn't just my opinion - there's a decent amount of research on the growth of narcissism in modern scotiety. Look at the work of Dr. Jean Twenge, for example) A small example: >My father learned this lesson last year after leaving me a dozen voice mail messages, none of which I listened to. If you enable voicemail and allow people to leave you messages, it's on you to listen to them. Social interactions are no different than product or software design - don't include an affordance for a feature that you don't want the user to use or, worse, will result in guaranteed failure to accomplish the desired task. The fault isn't the caller's.
- greenyoda 14y ago
  Another indication of Mr. Bilton's self-centeredness and entitlement is that he posts tons of articles from his own NY Times blog (and nothing else) to HN, assuming that we all want to read it: http://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=nickbilton http://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=nickbilton Other than those posts, his total contribution to HN was one comment made over a year ago. It's a bit ironic that someone who can't even be bothered to listen to his father's voicemails would assume that a community that he apparently doesn't consider himself a part of will want to read everything he has to say.
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
  - DanBC 14y ago
    Not as bad as some people, but still: (http://imgur.com/OxrsFTP http://imgur.com/OxrsFTP)
- saurik 14y ago
  Yeah... I am someone who agrees with most of the statements made by the author (and if you don't, try spending ten hours in one day trying to catch up on five days of email and failing: the emotional response you have to "thanks!" changes pretty quickly; even still, though, I usually can't really fault the sender), but that voicemail example was just inane: if he doesn't want voicemail, he should turn it off... he can even leave the message, but turn off the recording and storage. If he can't for some reason, he should just have the message tell people he can't check messages, and that they should text him (or whatever he had wanted). Frankly, though, if he doesn't want to listen to voicemail, he should sign up for PhoneTag or YouMail or some other "uses humans to transcribe voicemail" services and then stop whining about it, as the user then gets to leave the voicemail they expected and that he even invited, and he gets the text message he wanted. Technology solved this problem a long time ago, and if he doesn't want to use it, that's really his own fault.
hnacc10 14y ago
This article is a result of what happens when you have no idea what to write about but you need to get something out quickly + when you want to sound sophisticated and socially progressive.
rm999 14y ago
I can't tell if this article is supposed to be sarcastic or tongue-in-cheek. I actually think it's part of a worrying pattern from nytimes to be idiotically controversial, perhaps to increase readership and link shares. Anyway, I'll assume it's serious. A great piece of advice I heard a long time ago: if you constantly feel you're in a rush or don't have enough time for small tasks, you're probably not actually busy, you're mentally disorganized. Simplify the way you perceive the world and properly prioritize things. I feel like that advice applies well to this article. A superfluous e-mail is not a big deal.
biff 14y ago
Rude: "Thank you", vocal communication, simple requests for information Perfectly acceptable (?): futzing with electronics when dining with others, talking loudly into the ether regardless of setting, sending passive-aggressive links to Google Manners aren't passé, simply underappreciated in some quarters. In others they can make all the difference.
bluntly_said 14y ago
This is self-centered and egotistical to a fault. So a thank email is too hard to deal with, but I'm expected to read him whine about them?

13 points by nickbilton 14y ago

Some people are so rude. Really, who sends an e-mail or text message that just says “Thank you”?

Fwiw, I'm in the habit of sending thank you emails but I always change the subject from: Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit to Re: Lorem ipsum dolor sit -- Thanks! (On disqusish comment systems, I often upvote a reply to suggest I saw it rather than reply once more.)

hsmyers 14y ago

Another haxor wannabe (regardless of his age) using tech as an excuse to be rude. Kinda like programmers and their endless complaint about documentation :)

tedchs 14y ago

Are people getting so many 2-word "thank you" emails a day to show this article has a valid point? Don't get me wrong, sending merely "thank you" as a reply-all to a 200-person recipient list is one of the biggest email sins. But as a unicast, it serves the purpose of acknowledging receipt. If it was worth sending, it was worth knowing it was received, understood, and appreciated.

webwanderings 14y ago
I think you're missing the point. Sending a thank-you note to a 200-person list is a waste of time and rude to those who don't send such notes at every occasion. If you need acknowledgement than what's better than knowing that other person has read your email? (the default behavior of Facebook messages by the way). It is however another matter if the person who read your email decide to not reply back. I think this article makes a lot of sense.

schmrz 14y ago

My mother realized this long ago. Now we communicate mostly through Twitter. My first impression was that this is just sad but I guess that different people (and cultures) have different expectations when it comes to communication. With that said, the author is living inside a bubble created by his environment and his expectations. Saying that everyone should conform to his way of communicating is rude. Saying "thank you" to someone (through whatever communication channel you find most appropriate) is generally not rude.

davidmr 14y ago

Maybe this is why the people I interview almost never send us thank you notes. Here I thought it was just a general decline in etiquette, but they're really just being respectful of our time! Seriously though, I'm curious how many people send thank you emails (or even cards) after an interview. I was always taught that it was extremely rude not to do this, but I'd say as a conservative estimate, we get thank you e-mails after less than 1 of every 10 interviews.

xur17 14y ago
I thought it was standard practice to send thank you emails or cards after an interview. I figured some people forgot, etc, but 1 out of 10 is a lot lower then I expected. Honestly, it only takes a few minutes to write a simple thank you note and send it, so there's no excuse not to.
incongruity 14y ago
Interesting. I'm recently out of graduate school and I've been interviewing for full-time positions recently. I send a thank you email 8-24 hours after every interview, with very few exceptions. In contrast, I've been surprised/disappointed by the general vibe I've gotten in the interview process with a number of employers, large and small. Put most simply, there's little respect shown for candidates' time or situation. (This has been echoed through watching other classmates' experiences as well, so it's not just me being a low-value candidate) The specifics vary, but it always clearly a one sided interaction and little effort is put in to relations with potential employees except for the most high-profile, rock star candidates. To me, that seems to be a serious failing - I appreciate the mindset that says you should treat employees with the same mindset that guides your interactions with customers - especially in high-talent or high customer contact industries where employee satisfaction translates quickly into real business value. So, I guess my point is that I feel the job search process reveals more about society in general when viewed from both sides. Still, I will always send the thank you notes. I figure the place I want to work is one that appreciates the small gestures as well as the big ones...
- greenyoda 14y ago

incongruity 14y ago

Apologies, but I'm shocked by the self-centered, entitled crap I see here; most if not all of those annecdotes speak to the self-important, self-absorbed nature of modern society. (Side note: this isn't just my opinion - there's a decent amount of research on the growth of narcissism in modern scotiety. Look at the work of Dr. Jean Twenge, for example) A small example: >My father learned this lesson last year after leaving me a dozen voice mail messages, none of which I listened to. If you enable voicemail and allow people to leave you messages, it's on you to listen to them. Social interactions are no different than product or software design - don't include an affordance for a feature that you don't want the user to use or, worse, will result in guaranteed failure to accomplish the desired task. The fault isn't the caller's.

greenyoda 14y ago
Another indication of Mr. Bilton's self-centeredness and entitlement is that he posts tons of articles from his own NY Times blog (and nothing else) to HN, assuming that we all want to read it: http://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=nickbilton http://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=nickbilton Other than those posts, his total contribution to HN was one comment made over a year ago. It's a bit ironic that someone who can't even be bothered to listen to his father's voicemails would assume that a community that he apparently doesn't consider himself a part of will want to read everything he has to say.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- DanBC 14y ago
  Not as bad as some people, but still: (http://imgur.com/OxrsFTP http://imgur.com/OxrsFTP)
saurik 14y ago
Yeah... I am someone who agrees with most of the statements made by the author (and if you don't, try spending ten hours in one day trying to catch up on five days of email and failing: the emotional response you have to "thanks!" changes pretty quickly; even still, though, I usually can't really fault the sender), but that voicemail example was just inane: if he doesn't want voicemail, he should turn it off... he can even leave the message, but turn off the recording and storage. If he can't for some reason, he should just have the message tell people he can't check messages, and that they should text him (or whatever he had wanted). Frankly, though, if he doesn't want to listen to voicemail, he should sign up for PhoneTag or YouMail or some other "uses humans to transcribe voicemail" services and then stop whining about it, as the user then gets to leave the voicemail they expected and that he even invited, and he gets the text message he wanted. Technology solved this problem a long time ago, and if he doesn't want to use it, that's really his own fault.

hnacc10 14y ago

This article is a result of what happens when you have no idea what to write about but you need to get something out quickly + when you want to sound sophisticated and socially progressive.

rm999 14y ago

I can't tell if this article is supposed to be sarcastic or tongue-in-cheek. I actually think it's part of a worrying pattern from nytimes to be idiotically controversial, perhaps to increase readership and link shares. Anyway, I'll assume it's serious. A great piece of advice I heard a long time ago: if you constantly feel you're in a rush or don't have enough time for small tasks, you're probably not actually busy, you're mentally disorganized. Simplify the way you perceive the world and properly prioritize things. I feel like that advice applies well to this article. A superfluous e-mail is not a big deal.

biff 14y ago

Rude: "Thank you", vocal communication, simple requests for information Perfectly acceptable (?): futzing with electronics when dining with others, talking loudly into the ether regardless of setting, sending passive-aggressive links to Google Manners aren't passé, simply underappreciated in some quarters. In others they can make all the difference.

bluntly_said 14y ago

This is self-centered and egotistical to a fault. So a thank email is too hard to deal with, but I'm expected to read him whine about them?