
There’s nothing wrong with my no-email policy - zabzonk
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/jan/24/theres-nothing-wrong-with-my-no-email-policy
======
blackearl
It's easy to tweet anger at someone, less so in an email, and even less when
you need to write,package, address, stamp, and send a letter. Probably cuts
out a lot of the crap and only gets things that matter or what people are
really passionate about.

~~~
chmod775
It's probably just as easy to send an angry email. But something a public
medium like twitter doesn't really allow is subsequent apologies - people are
often afraid of admitting guilt publicly.

Running a quite large site, we get our share of angry support (email) tickets.
Although we don't have to take any shit, we are generally nicer than we have
to be ("Please find some mental counseling. Issuing death threats over not
getting your ticket answered within two hours is not normal.") and received
our share of apologies.

We also regularly get shit thrown our way via twitter, but don't expect any
apologies there.

~~~
pixelrevision
Twitter (and in general social media) is probably a good thing to avoid for
communication if you are not a large company that can staff up for it. Threads
can devolve very quickly into “campaigns”. I would not want to have my medical
staff spinning a bunch of cycles with pr related stuff or being subjected to
mobs.

------
ericmay
Do what works for you. I absolutely love email. I'll pick up the phone and
call someone too, but most things I do aren't so urgent I need to call you and
interrupt whatever you're doing right this second so that you can give me your
full, undivided attention.

I use email to remind myself of things I need to follow up on, coordinate
events, and keep new engagements in a single stream of consciousness. It works
well for me.

I don't typically get to 0-inbox, I usually have maybe 10-30 emails in my
inbox which are all read and are all there for a reason (listed above and
more). I religiously unsubscribe from things (or don't subscribe in the first
place) and I will admit it takes some work to keep organized.

I also have all notifications turned off and my email only fetches once/hour
anyway. I actually get excited when I get new emails because typically there's
something in progress and it's some sort of update or new information I can
use to do something I want to do.

So there's nothing wrong with a no-email policy. But I there's also nothing
wrong with email. Everything comes down to the processes YOU like and find the
most beneficial.

~~~
ecdavis
> Do what works for you.

This person should be doing what works best for their constituents, not for
them and their staff.

~~~
m-p-3
If it doesn't work for him, then it's not optimal for his constituents either.

~~~
yencabulator
Or _he 's_ not optimal for his constituents...

~~~
m-p-3
Apparently he is, or he won't be re-elected because of this choice.

------
Ansil849
> Letters, phone calls, and, where appropriate, surgery appointments are
> perfectly adequate for people who genuinely need my help

The insinuation that just because someone may not want to use a particular
communication channel (or conversely, may need to use a particular channel),
that they then are not genuine in their request for help is disingenuous and
self-serving. Someone may genuinely need help and may likewise genuinely want
to use email because they do not have ready access to a phone, or find it
vastly more inconvenient, and need help in a manner faster than mail or
setting up a surgery appointment affords.

~~~
armagon
The same could be said, in a domain more familiar to HNers, of bug reports.

If you don't take bug reports as tweets, or in e-mails, but insist that 1)
they go into a bug tracker, and 2) that they evidence some care (such as,
instead of saying, 'X is broken', include a list of steps to reproduce, and an
expected outcome) then, well, you must be self serving, and feel that these
bugs are not genuine or important.

But, you'll also have a greater capacity to actually deal with the requests
where someone made the effort to report a bug in a useful fashion.

~~~
progval
MPs are supposed to serve all their consistuents, though. Open source
maintainers' duty to their users is more controversial; but I think most
people would agree it's not as strong as an MP's.

> then, well, you must be self serving, and feel that these bugs are not
> genuine or important.

It's harder to keep track of bugs that aren't on a bugtracker (hence the name)
if you don't have time to fix them right now.

I regularly fix easy bugs submitted to me on IRC, but if I can't do it right
now, then I require the user to open an issue on my bugtracker or else I'll
forget it and fix one of the other 216 bugs on my bugtracker instead.

~~~
boublepop
> MPs are supposed to serve all their consistuents, though

Yes, and that responsibility predates computers. So let’s not pretend that
they only became capable of doing this effectively After Twitter was
developed, just because you and others don’t want to bother with sending a
letter.

------
gaspoweredcat
likewise there is nothing wrong with my "no phonecalls" policy and yet people
still insist on me using it, ill often contact people or companies about
things and get the response "just give me a call" why? theres no reason they
cant simply reply using the method i contacted them with but thats not all

first up phone calls tend to go "off the rails" no one simply answers the
question and says goodbye and hangs up so you waste a lot of time, not only
that but theres the fact that phone calls arent very private, not only is the
person youre talking to hearing you but anyone within earshot and the person
on the other end of the phone is usually oblivious or ignorant to your
location and who may be around you, if they ask something which you may
consider sensitive you then have to avoid the question (and potentially reply
by a more private means of communication after, wasting more time)

youre also put on the spot, theres no time to consider your response to
something youve been asked you have to respond pretty much instantly which can
go wrong in many ways, its why salespeople like to use the phone, its much
easier to get someone to agree to something they otherwise wouldnt if they had
more time to consider what theyd been asked

sadly the bottom line is we are all at some point usually forced to use a
method of communication we arent comfortable with, the best you can do is try
to minimise it

~~~
lioeters
Nothing wrong with my "email only" policy either - no phone or video calls.
Granted, I don't work in sales or customer support, but in the "back office".

My working, thinking, and writing style requires big blocks of focused time,
with no interruptions. A phone call or a scheduled meeting is a sure way to
disrupt and reduce my productivity. I reserve phone/video calls only for
personal purpose, not work-related, and even then it's rare.

Surprisingly, in my X years of working I've found that most people are willing
to tolerate or adapt to my preferred communication methods.

On occasion, in particular when I need to interact with those working at large
corporations, I've had people who just insist on "hopping on a call", even
after repeated explanation. Every time I've begrudgingly agreed, I've
regretted my decision, lost time, and less productive discussion.

Email is (near) perfect for me, as I can batch them at the start/end of my
day. I get to sit back, think things through, and reply at my own convenience.

------
mattl
Seems to work for Don Knuth: [https://www-cs-
faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/email.html](https://www-cs-
faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/email.html)

~~~
cwzwarich
Donald Knuth also does reply to email; he just doesn’t tell you he does. I
once got a response from him late in the evening, well after any secretary
would have gone home.

~~~
mattl
Knight or Knuth?

------
1123581321
The key quote:

“ Much of the organised abuse which has caused many MPs to “burn out” and
withdraw from public life results from their opening up themselves and their
long-suffering staff to interactive online communications by email and social
media. Indeed several have confided that they wish they had adopted my
unshakable policy right at the outset.”

I think there’s some wisdom here—-and he is indeed protecting his staff; he
wouldn’t be filtering all the email himself.

------
JadoJodo
Having just finished Cal Newport's 'Deep Work', I recall the section about
Donald Knuth's similar stance[0] of no-email.

[0] [https://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/email.html](https://www-cs-
faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/email.html)

~~~
74ls00
That’s fine, but then the MP should hire an assistant to manage their email if
it detracts from their deep work. Donald Knuth does not have a sworn duty to
represent people; he could go and live in the woods for all it would matter

~~~
boublepop
They had a sworn duty to represent people even before the computer was
invented. He’s not failing that obligation by not answering email, tweeting
his every though or ignoring Facebook friend requests. Your preferred path of
communication isn’t the same as his, that doesn’t mean he’s failing to
communicate.

------
ChrisSD
[https://www.writetothem.com/](https://www.writetothem.com/)

A website that you can use to send your MP a message. Not quite as convenient
as using email directly but almost so. They have a fax machine purely so that
Julian Lewis' constitutes can contact their MP.

~~~
Symbiote
For Julian Lewis, it now refers people (with a broken link) to the Parliament
website.

e.g.
[https://www.writetothem.com/write?who=47046&pc=SO42+7ZN](https://www.writetothem.com/write?who=47046&pc=SO42+7ZN)

~~~
ChrisSD
Ah, the fax machine must have died.

------
jscholes
... unless you would struggle to address a printed letter due to a disability,
Have anxiety, a full-time job or anything else that prevents you from
physically attending a surgery appointment, or can't speak. Or all of the
above.

~~~
Symbiote
It would need to be all the above, and without anyone to help with writing an
address (I'm sure someone at the post office would help), and without knowing
how to print the address onto the envelope, but still able to use email.

And he's a Tory MP, so in any case this hypothetical disabled person is
wasting their time.

------
RileyJames
>>> "There is nothing “mysterious” about the fact that I do not use email for
constituency correspondence: it is openly stated on the homepage of my – very
extensive – website"

LOL. Might want to look into that: www.julianlewis.net (do not click)

It directs to a spam / scam domain...

If only someone had a pen ready to write to him...

~~~
Symbiote
It redirected to a scam site the first time I opened it, but a minute later
(after a "curl" looked OK and I opened a private tab) it worked fine.

------
ohazi
... surgery appointment?

This guy is a politician, right? Not a surgeon? Can someone explain?

~~~
benjaminjosephw
It's a political term in the UK to refer to meetings with constituents:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surgery_(politics)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surgery_\(politics\))

------
JohnFen
Honestly, I can't fault him for this -- and I say that as a person who uses
email as my primary communications method.

His reasoning makes sense to me, and if his constituents don't mind, then it's
hard to say there's something wrong with his approach.

------
OrangeMango
Wikipedia says that this guy has been an MP since 1997. Presumably that means
he has won many elections and thus his constituents do not think his no-email
policy is a problem.

~~~
jen20
Or that he has a safe seat.

