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Work email etiquette.

nOOky

nOOky

Diamond Member
I'm annoyed on a daily basis by a couple of things:

First, put your telephone number and extension in your signature, it should be mandatory.

Second, reply to your effing emails. I email frequently asking questions, opinions, or for data and quite often it gets ignored. Usually I'm trying to answer a question or help with a complaint, so I'm trying to get to the bottom of an issue. I frequently get ignored with no replies, usually by the same people. My boss tells me I need to keep following up, I contend they need to answer my fucking emails. Who's right, him, I, or both of us to some degree?

I also love cilantro.
 
Both of you to some degree but I mostly side with you. I hate not getting responses. Like you, I'm generally emailing people to get answers because I'm trying to work with a client/stakeholder so correct information in a timely fashion is essential. It's even worse when I'm trying to get information for a project that the recipient actually asked me to do and then doesn't respond. Those are the worst!
 
Why would I put my phone number in an email? The point of email is that I can answer when I have a response prepared, not when some goober calls me. I and my supervisor prioritize my work, not just anyone with my phone number or email address.
 
If I give out a number it's always the department one, same with email. If people try to contact me directly I might not be there that day. I usually encourage people to just email though as it's easier for everyone. If I happen to be there and I'm in charge of that trouble I'll reply but if I'm not there then whoever is in charge will reply. My boss also gets the emails so he might also have insight on what's going on as well.
 
Ah the pet peeves:

- I e-mail/call/teams/whatever and no response even with multiple follow-ups.

- After being ignored my boss' solution is "Go knock down their office doors!" no why the fuck am I inconveniencing myself when they cannot reply to a basic ass e-mail. These are Executives and VPs, not Joe Smegma's first day on the job.

- I e-mail and then they call. No you asshole I want your response in writing and I know you don't want your response in writing. I always let them know "hey I'm going to shoot you a quick e-mail with a three sentence summary on what we discussed" if I need that shit in writing.

- On Teams: "Hey GodisanAtheist!" "Hey what can I help you with?" CRICKETS *WHAT DID THEY NEED?!*
 
GodisanAtheist said:
Ah the pet peeves:

- I e-mail/call/teams/whatever and no response even with multiple follow-ups.

- After being ignored my boss' solution is "Go knock down their office doors!" no why the fuck am I inconveniencing myself when they cannot reply to a basic ass e-mail. These are Executives and VPs, not Joe Smegma's first day on the job.

- I e-mail and then they call. No you asshole I want your response in writing and I know you don't want your response in writing. I always let them know "hey I'm going to shoot you a quick e-mail with a three sentence summary on what we discussed" if I need that shit in writing.

- On Teams: "Hey GodisanAtheist!" "Hey what can I help you with?" CRICKETS *WHAT DID THEY NEED?!*
Click to expand...
Ah, this one fuckin' guy...
Guy on Teams: "Question..."
*disappears for an hour*
Guy: "Sorry, blah blah blah happened, anyway..."

I've told that guy so many times, "Hey, when you have a question, just... ask the question, I don't need a preamble."
 
One of the joys of my job are I don't have to talk to anyone. If I get an email, it's directly actionable information from a client. If I ask for something, they're right on it, and I usually don't have to follow anything up unless there's a technical issue that needs to be addressed. Everything's terse, to the point, and works gets accomplished. No bullshit.
 
Incessant follow-ups are required with folks inability to take ownership of issues.

Email
Email reminder
Slack reminder
Zoom invite with agenda & attachments
CC to their boss & mine

My usual order of escalation. I've found my team struggles, but once I get involved shit gets done because if I have to CC my boss and yours, that means C-Levels are involved.
 
Ah, the joys of retirement. I don't even look at my email anymore. If you email me, I'll eventually respond but it could be up to a few weeks.
 
nakedfrog said:
Ah, this one fuckin' guy...
Guy on Teams: "Question..."
*disappears for an hour*
Guy: "Sorry, blah blah blah happened, anyway..."

I've told that guy so many times, "Hey, when you have a question, just... ask the question, I don't need a preamble."
Click to expand...

- Right? I always just say everything in one go "Good morning, hope you had a good weekend! So I was having an issue with the VPN this morning and wanted to know blah blah blah"

IMO its just self-centered-ness. Don't want to commit to typing out the whole thing without verifying you're there, but then decided something else was important instead...
 
nOOky said:
Second, reply to your effing emails. I email frequently asking questions, opinions, or for data and quite often it gets ignored. Usually I'm trying to answer a question or help with a complaint, so I'm trying to get to the bottom of an issue. I frequently get ignored with no replies, usually by the same people. My boss tells me I need to keep following up, I contend they need to answer my fucking emails. Who's right, him, I, or both of us to some degree?
Click to expand...
Cilantro sucks to me, tastes like lemon flavored soap, but the soap component is way stronger than any other flavor you could possibly imagine.

The information below is from my project management classes and textbooks:
  • For a normal employee the expectation is two interactions. Once to request and a second time as a friendly follow-up reminder.
  • For a project manager, the expectation is to repeat yourself endlessly until you can't possibly repeat the request again. Then repeat that. Here is an hint for effective communication: "But it almost always will require the use of repetition. If it's important, repeat it. If it's important, repeat it. If it's important, repeat it." https://www.pmi.org/learning/library/project-team-communications-distance-culture-functions-3579
Sounds to me like you are not doing sufficient repetition. There are other issues at play--they sound like jerks and ignoring you is just outright wrong. But, at the least you should do the bare minimum of 2.

Oh, and cilantro tastes like overpowering soap.
 
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If I send an e-mail to a coworker I expect a response...say 24 hours. Even if it is something like, "I'll get back to you." Anything less means you're just ignoring me.
Now get off my lawn.
 
As long as I'm bitching 😛 I have a supervisor that is always asking me to ask someone else something. Like "find out what Bob in Texas does with his used disposable forks when he's done with them". And my obvious response is "well what did Bob say when you asked him?" and I'll get "I'm not asking him, I'm asking you to find out" and I'll reply "here, let me email Bob, I'll copy you, and then we can both be ignored". The reasoning is that he wants to keep me "in the loop" when I really don't give a rat's ass what Bob does with his used plastic silverware. The strategy allows for too much mis-interpretation IMHO.
 
It's incredibly frustrating when it becomes a pattern. Fortunately I can usually do one of three things at that point with the work I do:
-Tell them that in absence of any objections we're moving forward with (insert my preference for whatever thing we're emailing about) on X date. (This is also, of course, recorded as "Stakeholder Y did not provide input or express any concerns about the proposed direction. In absence of objections by the Subject Matter Expert the project proceeded to... For questions or concerns related to the resulting direction please contact Stakeholder Y")
-Schedule a meeting with them and their boss with a note that: I'm scheduling a meeting on such and such date so we can get a decision about X. If we're not able to meet on or before the date I scheduled I'll have to pass along to everyone that the project will be delayed (and we do large scale projects so people will be pissed and it will cost a lot of people more $)
- Note a consequence if I don't get a reply by X date. That could be dropping their project all together and putting it back at the bottom of our list. Pausing while we re-negotiate timing and cost (and cost will go up). Cutting their favorite part of the project to keep agreed on all the other agreed on deliverables
 
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