- cross-posted to:
- adhd@lemmy.world
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E-Mails are evidence. A call isn’t. I always like to e-mail.
I totally agree. I had it a few times in which someone calls me, rips me out of my thoughs, we discuss something, hang up and I have nothing retained from what we talked about. Or, even better, someone says something on a call and I do that and then they never said anything about that.
Even worse, I can’t listen to the conversation in 1-2 weeks because that is the time I could actually work on it and remember every detail that we talked about.
Now I am strictly going with emails. Sure they can call me and we talk about the feasibility or discuss possible solutions but any request for implementation has to happen either over an email of which I then create a ticket/issue or they create one directly themselves.
That way I can prove that what I implemented was based on what was requested and if that was wrong then the request wasn’t clear enough.
Yes, this.
What I like to do is if I get a request from someone to do something while we are on a call, I politely ask them to send me an email so that I don’t forget about it when I get to working on it in a few hours/days. Conversely, if it’s a request that I’m asking, then I’ll send them a follow-up up email about the topics discussed (again mainly for me, but also beneficial for the recipient).
It’s super important to have that paper trail not only to CYA, but also so future conversations can be made from it. If while I’m working on something and I think of a potentially crucial idea, it’s good to be able to pull up that email and reply all so that the background and context is already there. I HATE having to repeat myself and give the whole spiel all over again – just super inefficient. Plus, many times people get added to the email chain so it helps them get caught up to speed too.
Bottom line, phone call and face to face conversations are just as important as email correspondence.
Send the email, then call me to say “hey I sent you an email that I really need you to read and respond to urgently, I’ll let you go so you can focus while reading, talk later”
For one of my 3 jobs, I don’t have regular work hours, I’m employed just 5 hours a week, on call, for IT support for a little non for profit.
My contract, my email signature, my numerous discussions with the team all state “if you require a response within the same business day, please phone me to alert me to the issue”
I check my email once a day, I don’t have time to be checking it several times a day when I’m only paid for 5 hours work, I need to conserve those hours for maintenance and support I’m not about wasting anybody’s time.
So if someone happens to email me after I’ve already checked my inbox for that day, I won’t see it until tomorrow. Hence, phone me, I want to work, I just need a way to alert myself that work is available for me, a text message will also suffice.
I realise this is asking someone to change the way they operate to make my job easier. But the number of times I check my email at 1pm, and there’s zero tickets, so I turn off my computer because I’m not going to sit and watch an empty inbox for my free time.
Then the next day I check my email and I have 20 emails all from the same person from about 3-5pm all saying “hey I have an issue” “hey following up this is kind of urgent” “hey, are you even checking your emails?”…no obviously I’m not, it would have saved you so much effort to send 1 text after 1 email as I requested than to send 20 emails, and I would have actually gotten the text in time.
Also half the time the issue needs to be fixed with a phone call anyway because it’s something simple like “Microsoft Word is missing”… because the program was unpinned from the taskbar and the staff member just needs help remembering the start menu exists. Most of my support resolutions are the equivalent of describing the buttons on the TV remote to your grandmother over the phone. (lots of older, less tech literate folk working in NFP sector)
I am wondering though, why are you not using imap/push on a mobile which would be trivial?
If I had to wager it’s to reduce distractions while working. It’s the same reason I no longer wear an apple watch after I tossed it into the sun.
Possibly, though there’d still be questions (sla etc)
There’s a reason debt collectors refuse to deal via email.
Non- refudiation is golden.
You could record
2-party consent states exist, and make this annoying if someone wants to be a dickhead about things
That’s why I hate text and mail cause someone can use it against you and also with a call you can sufficiently enact some impression by subtle tone modulation and tempo.
Text is just text hard to convey any emotion, sarcasm or a joke. I cannot read anyone’s mind through text
I’d rather go and see them in person than have to call them…
I must be getting old, because I’m starting to prefer phone calls. I don’t want to spend 10 minutes teaching your goddamn chat bot how to understand my problem. I just want to tell another human being so it becomes their problem to fix it.
Annoying thing is the phone system they use to divert your call. It feels almost intentional to get us not to speak to a representative.
“Almost”?
Had that experience with Comcast about 2 weeks ago. Took 15 minutes and three attempts to get to a representative. The chat bot couldn’t figure out what I meant when I said I needed my cable buried again. On a side note it’s been 2 weeks and they still haven’t sent anyone out to bury it again 🤦♂️
They’re too busy charging people for going over the monthly cap.
I AM old and fuck calls…
But I’m not a good meter, burned out early on tier 1 helpdesk and am a hermit by nature.
That’s okay. : )
I was in the “I hate calls” camp when I was younger, but I have realized that a call takes way less time than an email chain or texts. Also, it is extremely gratifying to tell someone to fuck off on a call, especially a scammer.
Calling someone out of the blue is rude nowadays, because mainly we only get spam calls.
Texts and emails are better, and if you just want to talk for a while, schedule it with a text.
Hey, call me when you can tonight, nothing urgent.
This is the new Way.
We’ve come full circle back to pagers.
I’m sure I’ve still got mine in a drawer somewhere
The “nothing urgent” almost always gets left out and I end up a ball of anxiety from it. Just give me some details on what to expect. fuck.
I feel you deep in my marrow on this one which is why I go out of my way to let people know, and am explicit what the unpleasantness would be if it was urgent. Better to rip off the bandage quick than say the dreaded ‘We need to talk…’
Rude where? Totally normal here.
My inbox with >1000 inread emails says otherwise. You want something from me? Call me. Emails are just for meeting notes and other information for archival. Fuck every single one asking me to do something via email.
Instant messaging is the absolutely worst by the way. Nothing is archived and its way less efficient than a quick call.
I am curious, do you pick up all your calls?
If im not on dnd, yes. I work closely with project management and customers though.
You FUCKING REEK of C-suite…
I have no idea what that is though
He means you sound like a corporate executive. CEO, CIO, CFO…
Lol, No. Not even close. I’m a mechanical engineer and we’re super understaffed. It’s terrible!
Haha. I’m a mechanical engineer and I completely agree with you.
Sometimes there are 5 email responses in a chain with long comments from different people. I just want to have a 5 min call to sort it out. Also, I get a lot of emails while in a meeting and later need to get to work instead of checking all my emails. If you need something urgent, pick up the phone and call me or wait for a week until I clear my inbox.
Bless ya. Logistics here. I run equipment designed to be staffed by 4-6 people. We run it with 2-3. All the C-suite at my corporation can say about that is that we don’t clean enough, lol.
I haven’t pieced out why yet but I have recently realized that phone calls are a huge anxiety trigger for me.
Because human brains aren’t supposed to be able to do emotional and mental parkour like completely redirecting our focus on a new topic in under a second without prior warning.
For me personally, if it’s a call I expect, it drops the anxiety levels by considerable amount. Even better, if I can prepare a plan/scenario for the call, and take notes during it.
Of course, if it’s someone from my close family or friends, that also helps. But unexpected calls from unknown numbers (or known, but from like work or distant acquaintances) freak me out.
I can handle phonecalls from friends and family. Anyone else I just won’t pick up. Screw you buddy.
Incoming calls I can handle. But me calling somewhere? Hell naw!
Because human brains aren’t supposed to be able to do emotional and mental parkour like completely redirecting our focus on a new topic in under a second without prior warning.
citation needed lol
Evolution, last time I checked, selects for stuff that a species regularly does on a very long timescale. We have not had telephones invented for long enough for them to be relevant to the way our brain evolved
For what it’s worth, we haven’t had doors much longer relative to how long our brains have been evolving. The time between doors and telephones is a hiccup in comparison.
Doors don’t require much brain power to operate, though
For me, I think it’s the fact that I have to prepare for both a social interaction and a monologue depending on whether they answer or not. As someone with mild social anxiety, the uncertainty and the fact that I am unequivocally initiating the interaction messes with a lot of the ways I would cope with joining a normal social interaction and throws me off my game
I got a lot better at phone calls when I worked on trauma therapy. I’ve always had issues asserting myself and phone calls are sort of a form of saying “hey!! Quit what you’re doing and pay attention to me because I have something important!” which isn’t something I was used to doing or asking for nor did I even think anything I did was important
It’s gotten much better for me as I’ve aged, I really don’t think about it now.
On the other hand, why the fuck are you calling me?!? There better be a huge goddamn problem that you can’t communicate through text.
If you’re getting a call, the “huge goddamn problem” better be “time”.
Pretty much. It’s something I need to know now.
Or what? You’ll whinge about it? Cry about it? Not much else you can do is there?
I keep running into this issue where I want to e-mail the support team of a product and their options are like
FAQ, Phone number, forum, “ai” "assistant
like please god no just let me submit a ticket please please please
Then you call the phone number and its a “helpful” voice chat bot you have to tell your problem to and hope it directs you to the right directory in their convoluted phone tree
As someone who works in telecom building phone tree menus, I agree. I have never said this is needed. I’m sure there are some companies with a million departments where narrowing it down with this would be quicker, but I’ve never dealt with one where 5 options and maybe a few subtrees didn’t get the job done. Takes under a minute to navigate. I believe the customer enjoys this more as well.
They don’t give an email option, as then it would instantly become a ticket and they have to work on it. They prefer you gettig frustrated with the bot or the phone menu, and givng up
This for me as well, but I’m on the opposite side of the world from US companies so calling is always a scheduling fiasco
This is me, I feel like calling is detrimental because I can’t fucking understand what people are saying on the phone, presumably they can’t understand me. Everything is initially misscomunicated and needs to be restated like 2-3 times. Email just makes more sense and if it’s a bunch of things that need to be communicated precisely. Also having things in written for like an email is always good because it can be later referenced incase things become some he said she said.
Until you get a message that says just “server is not working”. Which one? Not working how? Who the hell are you, name@gmail.com?
How do you even respond to that? Unless you want to sound like an ashole, and spend an hour exchanging messages, you have to call back. I hate it so much!
Do you write long emails? If you are like me, you write clear, detailed emails that nobody reads.
In business at least, most people treat emails like text messages. If they are too long, their level of comprehension goes down.
I do try to add any and all relevant information to a given subject. But I think you are right, where people do not read the emails most of the time and nearly skim over the key points. Someone in this comment section also mentioned emailing and calling. This seems like the best way, send detailed email and then call to clarify anything they did not get.
I think the bottom line is that you need to meet people where they’re at. I understand the part about audio issues and I feel like it’s exasperated because of the low audio quality from mobile phones or earbuds. At work, I really have to work at hearing people who use airbuds, especially if they’re male Indians.
Conversely, I will read a well-written email or text and to the thing that it’s saying, then get a reply that I did it all wrong and realize that I completely misunderstood it. I read it again and then my original reply and can’t figure out how I got it all wrong. If they tell me something, however, I’ll remember it completely and accurately. Also, I have to write everything down in order to remember, but I never need to look at my notes. I must have some loose wires.
Nope, that’s pretty much exactly how my brain works, too. Or maybe we both have the loose wires?
Y’all are weirdos. It’s just a fucking call. Take it, ask the person to slow down. It’s so quick. The amount of typing needed to replaced it is ridiculous.
I think this kind of problem is more exhibited in millennials who grew up on online chat and message boards. For younger Gen Zs who basically live on Discord, there’s less apprehension about calling someone. Face-to-face communication is another story for those Gen Zs, though.
I’m a millennial who grew up on chat. It’s really just a vocal minority.
vocal
Ba-dum-tss!
Millennial who grew up on online chat here.
If you want to be treated like an adult, act like an adult. That means making and taking calls without hesitation when the need arises.
Don’t be a baby, it’s a conversation. If you can’t understand what someone said, say “I beg your pardon” or “can you repeat that, please”.
I greatly prefer asynchronous communication for a few reasons…chief of which being able to craft a thoughtful reply instead of being on the spot. 30 quiet seconds to think about something is a hell of a lot easier in a chat than it is on the phone. (I’m not talking about general conversation, a lot of times I’m asked to explain complex topics or provide ideas on how to fix things).
I also find it a hell of a lot less distracting. Especially when it replaces meetings. I’d gladly have a few days-longs chats going to work things out, versus a few hour-long meetings. It makes the actual project itself the focus of my attention, not the meeting, and makes it a lot easier to maintain a flow.
I dunno. Maybe I’m just a special breed of Inattentive ADHD + Social Anxiety + Millennial. But I also think that probably describes the largest slice of neurodivergencies among millennials.
ETA: also fuck everything about video calls. Maybe it’s just because I’m in IT that we don’t do them…it’s just not a part of our work culture. We’re a sausage-party of ugly nerdy recluses, we know that and don’t need to see each others faces to confirm it. Of course they always come on for the sales calls…ugh. Making me put on a clean shirt and have to think twice about standing up so I don’t do it in view of the camera. Hate 'em. And having to tidy up behind me. It’s not a mess, and I’ve got the blur filter on, but I don’t need my boss asking about my White Claws or my bong.
Yeah, having to think at a reasonable pace and be presentable on the job are such unreasonable expectations. We had better slow all business communication to a crawl regardless of urgency to make sure little snookums doesn’t have to wear a clean shirt or put on pants.
For fucks sake…
Did you read the rest of the post? Meetings and phone calls are a time sink nowadays
Yeah, so if they’re boring, they shouldn’t be causing a panic attack now should they?
I prefer to write emails because then I have proof about everything that was said and I can take the time to think about my request. It could be very productive.
The reason I call anyways is because people are too lazy and stupid to read more than one sentence and then I have to repeat what they missed out the first time over and over until they answered everything.
Emails serve a purpose, but so do phone calls. People getting crippled by fear at the thought of having a real time conversation and then expecting everyone to make huge accomodations for their fucking fragility are ridiculous.
If a person is genuinely that anxiety-riddled they can’t function in society and I will gladly have my tax dollars pay for their disability benefits. Everyone else needs to put their big kid undies on and be able to stand and deliver on time sensitive problems.
expecting everyone to make huge accomodations for their fucking fragility are ridiculous.
Writing an email isn’t a huge accommodation unless you’re illiterate
Unless you need a lot of information right fucking now
I’m not weird. You’re weird.
Haha agreed. You don’t have to go back and forth over several hours or days to sort an issue out when you call. You can just hash it all out over the phone in a fraction of the time, and be on your way.
Oh well, to each their own.
Nah, the commitment in time on a call is unknown. I know I can fire off an email in under a minute. A call? That might take a few minutes. I’ll only call if I absolutely need an immediate response. Otherwise? Eat shit. I’m not getting roped into phone calls.
They’re not going to answer anyway.
Exactly, no-one picks up the phone anymore.
I pick up, unless the number is unknown, then I screen the call.
Go to them in person. 😈
Honestly that was the norm pre-COVID at my office.
So glad that ended.
Don’t call me. The reason I take forever to get shit done is the 6 hours a day in unnecessary phone calls and meetings. You want shit done then stfu and let me work.
“Just wanted to make sure you didn’t forget your tasks”
“Did you get that email I just sent?”
Are you my landlord?
I’m a bureaucrat in a tiny city that’s an enclave for the mega-rich. The average new home price is 20x the surrounding area.
But have more billionaires in the city than municipal employees, and billionaires and their minions are needy as fuck.
25,000 square foot houses built on a 40- degree hillside can’t be approved in 3 days no matter how rich your ass is.
40 degrees is ridiculous. Steep slopes, people! NJ is pretty strict about that shit, although Alpine does what they want (because money, as I’m sure you can attest). People on top of hill don’t care about the impacts of erosion and groundwater at the bottom of the hill.
The place where I’ve worked for the last year and a half has been kind of rebuilding the whole product development team (including supporting cast like product and project managers) and using agile, etc.
So while we have some meetings, like daily stand-ups and the sprint planning & retrospective, for the most part they actively try to keep us engineers out of them. We get to work on the stuff that we’re supposed to work on, and all these other players work together to figure out what we should work on next without needing us there.
It’s a god dammed revelation! The engineers get to work on bugs and features rather than like at my last place where it was a mix of project management, financial justifications, inter-department meetings, scheduling, chasing people for stuff we need, and putting out fires on the production floor. Oh and then engineering shit every now and then.
Different types of roles, but still.
Phone calls? With your voice? But nobody even answers the phone anymore. Just send it to voicemail like a reasonable person. Quit being a psychopath!
DM: got a minute for a voice call?
only a barbarian rings unannounced.
Honestly that’s worse for me if you don’t mention the subject.
‘im having issues with x are you free to discuss possible solutions’ is fine, but I hate the open ended ‘are you busy’ messages
Whether or not I’m busy depends on what you’re asking me to talk about.
Just send 'em a stern email. That’ll teach 'em.
