Rant of the Week: Communication Overkill
I’ll admit as a software developer I like to avoid contact with the outside world as much as possible. Email has been fine for most situations and sometimes talking on the phone is a necessary evil. But one my biggest annoyances is when people use multiple methods of communication to send one message.
The most common example of this are people who send me an email and then immediately call me to make sure I got the email and what I thought about it. I only have Outlook check for new messages every five minutes so most of the time I haven’t even received the email let alone read it and responded to it. Heaven forbid I get up to go to the bathroom and I don’t see your message for seven minutes.
Here are the guidelines for deciding which method of communication to use:
1. If you are sending me a message that is not urgent and I don’t have to stop what I am working on this second, send an email.
2. If the message’s urgency is greater than the lost productivity of stopping in the middle of writing code then call my phone.
See there are only two guidelines, it’s easy and fun!
Today’s story is the most ridiculous example I’ve had, and the catalyst for this post. I receive an email from a coworker. Since I was not knee deep in Visual Basic I read it and started a response. The coworker then called the main office number and told someone to tell me he was about to call me on my cell phone. Yes, that’s right, called someone to tell me he was about to call me on my phone. Then he calls my phone and asks if I got the email. For those of you at home keeping track on your interruption score pad that is three interruptions just to give me one message.
The moral of the story is, if you work in an office think about how important your question is before asking it. If you would like you questions met with disdain and contempt then by all means follow the above example. However, if you don’t want to be douchebag then use my simple guidelines.
November 28th, 2007 at 3:02 pm
Side Rant -
If management is going to have certain lines of communication open, and encourage using them to ask questions it would be greatly appreciated if they actualy answered the questions…
My example being: We run Sametime at work (falls on face). We have a group chat for our team open where we can ask questions without having to wait on emails or leave our desks… Which is nice. But when the management staff is sitting at their desk not answering questions what good is it for us to even use this line of communication? Now I understand they can get a little busy sometimes, but I think after about 2 or 3 minutes they could at least acknowledge the question. Even if it is just to let us know they’re busy and will get to it as soon as they can.
- End Rant
That’s my two cents from the office.
November 28th, 2007 at 4:40 pm
This reminds me of a post I wrote about last year.
November 28th, 2007 at 9:04 pm
Much easier strategy for you, Russ:
Become an eccentric sociopath. Treat requests like you would treat cat turds… you perfunctorily scoop them out of the litter box, dump them where they’ll never be found again, and then wash your hands.