
Slow email replies cause serious anxiety - ohjeez
http://www.bbc.com/capital/story/20161103-your-slow-email-replies-are-causing-serious-anxiety
======
darklajid
That seems crazy. Honestly, mail is my main communication medium exactly
_because_ you cannot see when I read the message and because of the implied
asynchronous exchange.

If the person on the other end is feeling anxious about that exchange I

a) have no sympathies, none at all

b) feel that they don't understand the medium they're using (as confirmed by
the "I could always pick up the phone" line at the end of the article)

I'm trying hard to suppress a "Booohoooo" reply here. Persons that concerned
about exchanges (and IMs make this that much harder - I see so many passive
aggressive "And?"/"You read it, what do you think?" messages around me,
because people assume that "Saw the message" equals "Has time and incentives
to answer me right this very moment") need to see a doctor. If you can
describe this as anxiety, you might need help.

~~~
tdkl
That's why I love chatting with Wire, there's no "seen" status by design and
can completely avoid this kind of mental BS.

~~~
relyio
You can use this
[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/facesnoop/kebmejpc...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/facesnoop/kebmejpcciehlicgipgfinbgdbedeoag?hl=en)
to disable Facebook's "Seen" function if you want

FD: I made it

------
codethief
Here's the strategy that one of my professors uses and that he explained to me
some time ago: While he reads and replies to incoming emails througout the
day, he set up his mail server (or email client) to only send out his replies
once a day, namely at 4.30am. That way,

1) correspondents are prevented from using email as chat, i.e. from burning a
lot of his time 2) people write more result-oriented emails, knowing they will
have to wait for his response for a day 3) the total volume of emails reaching
him decreased because a lot of the issues people (want to) email him about
often solve themselves within a day, so people don't bother emailing him about
them anymore, knowing that he won't be able to help them in time.

~~~
tgb
Or use the strategy that one of my professors used: refuse to get a school
email address and all the associated computer accounts and hence be completely
incapable of doing most paperwork. The important stuff they'd find a way to
get him to do anyway.

Note: tenure may be required. Predating the email system helps, too.

~~~
codethief
Well, not using email at all is pretty much impossible, considering how many
committees said professor is in and how many students he's handling. It's also
not his goal because he does like working with them and participating and so
on. It's just that he was looking for a more time-effective method to do so.

~~~
tgb
He had a department email, but not the school-wide system account/email.

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fragsworth
I am completely the opposite. I get anxiety over e-mails that I've personally
left unattended in my inbox, because I didn't have time to handle them yet.
Damn it, another e-mail I have to "mark as unread"...

If I hit "send", and the ball is in someone else's court, then it's usually
somewhat of a relief.

~~~
wfunction
I'm like this too. I can't stand unread email.

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emailtoss1
> For starters, you should be clear on when they expect a response back

If only recruiters and hiring managers took this seriously! They've been the
worst communicators I've ever experienced in my professional life--as the
applicant. I'm cool with ignorance of an initial application. That's normal.
It's just after I interview with a company 2 or 3 times for a position and
then they ignore my communication that I become quite annoyed.

Example 1: I am currently waiting on a response to a second in-person
interview I had with a number of people at company X. I was told that I would
"hear back next week" from the hiring manager. 2 weeks later, I sent an email
to check in. 1 week later, still no response.

Example 2: A while back with the much more well-known company Y I was told
that I would "receive feedback soon" by a recruiter after they had flown me
out and had dedicated basically a half-day worth of interviews for me with
their team. I followed-up 1 week later and received a message that "the team
has been busy" and that they'll "get back to [me] next week." I sent another
email checking in 2 weeks later. Ignored. I tried again 2 or 3 weeks later
after that. Ignored again. And just because I still had the recruiter's email
address, I followed-up 2 months later and finally got an email that the
position had actually been removed.

~~~
petre
We will get back to you = buzz off. Just don't expect a response and keep
looking for other jobs. Eventually someone will respond. If they get back to
you when you already found a job tell them you'll get back to them in two
weeks.

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hackuser
I ran a support organization. Maybe the most effective policy we implemented
for user satisfaction was that a human, not a machine, responded immediately
to every email, even if only to say 'we've received your message and we'll get
back to you at time X'.

Until you respond, the sender doesn't know if you received it or not (maybe
there was a server or network problem on one end or the other; maybe it went
into your spam folder), if you noticed it or not (maybe it was overlooked?),
if you read it or not (too busy? blowing me off? mad at me? I'm not important
enough?), and when you'll get around to doing something (should I count on it
happening today? tomorrow? next week or month? ever?). They wonder if they
should send another message (too pushy? but if the recipient didn't see it for
one of the above reasons, sooner is better than later). They are operating in
the dark unknown, and imagine all sorts of things. Effectively, you've set no
expectations for them.

I know that, because I noticed how I felt and thought when I was on the other
end. Our customers seemed much happier, even if response times (an actual
response to their problem, not just a confirmation of receipt) and service
completion times didn't change.

~~~
insickness
Interesting. I do IT infrastructure support. I generally respond after I've
completed the task but this makes me think that I should reply to their email
immediately with something like, "I'm looking into this."

~~~
jason_pomerleau
I managed an IT team for awhile. While you may be working diligently on the
task, the 'client' (whoever that is) has no idea that any sort of action has
even started, which can induce a lot of anxiety, depending on the situation.
You'll have much happier customers if you keep them in the loop early.

It doesn't have to be arduous. The four words you wrote above are enough. Or,
"Hi Bob, I'm on another task at the moment, but I should be able to look into
this in a couple of hours. Will be in touch." has a significant calming
effect, and will often buy you extra time.

Of course, Bob might just say "this can't wait a couple of hours" but that's a
separate chapter in human relations. :)

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underlingus
All my emails are on a one hour tape delay, to account for global lunch breaks
in time zones around the world.

Somewhere in time and space, people are trying eat lunch right now.

Even SMS gets a tape delay for the first response. What if my phone was on
vibrate in my coat pocket, hanging in the closet? After that first response,
you'll know I have it in hand, so I'll make with the snappy replies, since I
trusted you with my phone number to begin with.

Chats? The window was minimized. What do you want from me? Blood?

Emails may or may not enjoy 24 hour response times. I don't check all of my
email addresses on a daily basis. Work emails are starkly divided from
personal emails, for legal reasons regarding domain names (DNS) and bare metal
server locations and territorial jurisdiction. Some animals are more equal
than others.

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tonyedgecombe
I've found if I reply too quickly it often ends up creating more messages than
if I just sit on things for a while. People often seem to resolve their own
problems if you give them some time.

If they have a problem with that then that really is their problem, not mine.

~~~
Solinoid
This. Not sure why 'Send in x min/hours/point_in_future' isn't a more common
feature of communication software.

~~~
freelancezombie
I use boomerang in gmail specifically for this.

~~~
Solinoid
I'm aware of it, and I can't believe such a simple service is a paid add on.

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http-teapot
I've never been as busy as the past 4 months. I don't reply to emails that
requires lengthy text. If I can reply by "Yes", "No" or any of the derivatives
then you'll get an answer from me.

If you have a problem, what do you think is the solution? If you need
something, what exactly do you need? You want to contact me, what's your phone
number and when are you available? You don't feel great, why? How can we solve
the problem?

It's super important to not hurt people feelings and speak right and that
takes a lot of my time (especially as a non-native English speaker.)

On the other end I commit to read every emails.

~~~
johansch
After 20 years of working I've learned: answer quickly (to the emails that you
intend to reply to) even if the only thing you can say is "I have read this
and will get back to you".

I used to fuzz and wait until I had the ultimate, perfect reply.. usually like
12-48 hours later. Turns out that is the wrong approach - for the reasons
outlined in this article.

> On the other end I commit to read every emails.

That was my defense too! I iterated it over and over to my team (my bosses
would get preferential treatment...), but noone would believe me - unless I
responded. People tend not to believe invisible things.

~~~
robotresearcher
This is a good strategy, and even better if you tell them when to expect a
proper reply (and then you stick to it). That really helps the sender make
plans at their end, and thus reduce their stress.

~~~
johansch
I also, perhaps a little surprising (but not really), found that it reduced my
own stress as well.

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epx
You need to educate your peers that they should not expect immediate response.
I am even delaying answers to Skype, Facebook and WhatsApp these days,
otherwise people begin to ask you how is the weather in the middle of the
night and keep sending ??? when you don't answer...

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adrianratnapala
As a partial response to this people have invented a new plage: out of office
emails for when I email outside of 9-5 weekdays.

 _I already know_ that people don't work 24/7, I even understand timezones. If
I fire off an email, I'm totally cool if they pick pick it up in the morning.
But then I get prematurely excited by an "immediate" response which turns out
to be just a bot telling me what I already know.

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yawz
What's wrong with a phone call? If we expect immediate feedback we should use
more appropriate communication tools.

~~~
mwfunk
It's all context and the work environment and the habits of the people you're
dealing with. Phone calls can potentially be rude and disruptive because
effectively you're telling another person that whatever you want in this
instant is more important than whatever they're doing, no matter what they're
doing. They have to stop everything to deal with the phone call, in the same
way as if someone just barged into their office uninvited, sat down, and
blindly started talking, ignoring whatever else might have been going on at
the time.

In engineering environments, phone calls also tend to be ineffective ways to
communicate technical information, whereas email threads (terse or not)
preserve the history and context of decision making processes, which can be
revisited or cited as needed.

Also, nowadays more and more people simply hate the experience of talking on
the phone and would prefer that it didn't even exist in their lives as a
communication device. So there's a whole personal preference angle that's
independent of the pragmatic/effectiveness angles.

None of which is to say that there's anything wrong with a phone call, just
that it really depends on where you work, what you do, who you work with, what
they do, etc.

~~~
tene
That's exactly correct. If your communication is in fact important enough to
barge in disruptively and demand their full attention immediately, a phone
call is appropriate. If your communication is _not_ that important, then send
an email and expect to wait, because they're doing other things. Either it's
time-sensitive or it isn't. Either you need an immediate reply, or you don't.
Why bother being anxious and nervous about something if it's not time-
sensitive? If it's time-sensitive, then just make a call.

Where does this bizarre communication anxiety come from?

~~~
gregmac
> Either it's time-sensitive or it isn't. Either you need an immediate reply,
> or you don't.

I think part of the problem comes from differing opinions on what is actually
"time sensitive". I think a lot of the trouble comes from someone using a
time-sensitive communication method (phone, physically coming to your desk) on
something the other person doesn't see that way.

I certainly have less empathy for someone that has time-sensitive problems
through their own poor planning (aka "Your failure to plan is not my
emergency"). Everyone makes mistakes, but some people seem to continually have
their own self-created emergency all the time, and it's completely draining.

------
Someone
I can see that happening with love letters, certainly when sent over snail
mail, but with business mail? That “marketing operations manager” needs help;
I don’t see why the world would have to accommodate to suit him.

Also: I found that it helps to have a rule in your email client that says “if
I am not in the _To:_ field, move this to the folder called _CC_ ”.

That is a folder you can safely (1) ignore.

Similarly, one _could_ add a rule “if there are over 3 people in the _To:_
field, move this to the _Read Later_ folder”, but that is quite risky.

(1) not quite, as long threads may evolve to contain questions for you without
people adjusting the list of addressees, but that’s the fault of the senders.

~~~
ansgri
Good suggestions, might use myself. Also, my favorite rule is 'discard emails
with empty subject'. I'm teaching an university class, and the younger
generation seems to not understand the ethics of email.

~~~
GrinningFool
Or we in the older generation seem to not understand how the ethics of email
are evolving :)

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samstokes
This appears to be a human interest story masquerading as a social psychology
report:

 _Your slow email replies are causing serious anxiety_

citing one anecdote, then four paragraphs later:

 _there are no statistics or research on just how anxious people get when
e-mails go unanswered_

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LisaDziuba
I remember a good post about Silicon Valley etiquette, which suggested startup
founders to answer on emails within 24 hours. That's a good advice, but
sometimes developing product is more important them answer on 101 email.

~~~
JumpCrisscross
If you are overloaded with email, consider the workflows which are putting so
much in your inbox.

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josh_carterPDX
It could just be me and the way I handle email, but by using something like
Yesware you could easily mitigate the anxiety around slow responses. Plus, if
I see someone open my email a few days later it's usually a good indication my
message is still front of mind and sending a follow up email will usually
trigger a faster response.

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venomsnake
Back in the day the dumb phones had an interesting function - you could use
them for synchronous real time voice communication over public switching
network. Unless apple removed it with the headphone jack - it is probably
still somewhere in the device. We also have an Avogadro constant types and
brands of chat apps.

If you use email for time sensitive communication - it is your fault.

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douche
Your emailing me bullshit that should be handled by IM is causing me anxiety.

I don't check my email more than once every 2-3 hours, assuming that I am
actually working and not screwing around in a reactive pattern.

Choosing an appropriate level of communication severity and urgency should
really be business 101.

