For example I’ll send an e-mail with 3 questions and will only get an answer to one of the questions. It’s worse when there are 2 yes/no questions with a question that is obviously not a yes/no question. Then I get a response of
Yes
back in the e-mail. So which question are they answering?
Mainly I’m asking all of you why do people insist on only answering 1 question out of an e-mail where there are multiple? Do people just not read? Are people that lazy? What is going on?
Edit at this point I’ve got the answers . Some are too lazy to actually read. Some admit they get focused on one item and forget to go back. I understand the second group. The first group yeah no excuse there.
Continuing edit: there are comments where people have tried the bullet points and they say it still doesn’t help. I might put the needed questions in red.
Ah, one of my top complaints about digital communication. Doesn’t matter if it’s SMS or email, someone plainly doesn’t read the entirety of what you wrote even if it’s relatively short. Irritatingly sometimes taking another two follow-ups regarding the exact same subject or question ending up with both parties likely getting frustrated.
I’ve gotten passive agressive / aggressive about this depending on the person.
Now if I ask more than one question and they only answer one, I’ll just forward them the same email again with the first question struck through.
As per my last email…here’s the same email again.
Digital communication is near instant. It’s not like snail mail where you have to cram your letter with as much information as you can, or it will be ages until the next reply.
Not sure what your point is. Just send a ton of messages when one will (should) do? If the information is pertinent or pressing then it’s not useful to have to send multiple messages.
Bad reading comprehension
People read the subject line, assuming it’s not longer than about seven words, and then the first 30%, and last 15% of your email, in my experience. You can increase this by adding line breaks and bullets. In my experience, the best responses come from a short paragraph, followed by a couple bullet points, then a couple sentences, then your salutation/signature. I try not to write anything longer than that.
This. OP is mistaken if he thinks all people had to carefully read all email. We techies love to explain things too much, but executives are administrators, they don’t delve into technical details unless needed.
My technique to get busy executives to answer my emails is being direct and brief.
- Subject: As concise as possible, and then more
- In bold, one thing I need from them. Asking three things is a sure way to end up with two unanswered things.
- Two line breaks
- In bold “Details”, another line break, and a bullet list of any info they might need, but not necessarily read.
That’s it. If they need more, they will ask you. If you need more, send three emails, or make it very clear in the first line that you’re asking three things, and make them a bullet list.
Also, this works surprisingly well with people other than executives.
That’s right. The brains of these super-efficient high performers and most valuable members of our society are so above everyone else, that they need babysitting and special care taken of their needs. It’s why they also deserve to get paid so much more than everyone else and not have any actual responsibility for their genius decisions!
Every day I feel so bad for these leaders and am inspired by the self-sacrifice they bring to make the world a better place.
Dude, tell me you haven’t been in a management position without yadda yadda etc.
They’re not genius or more valuable, their workflow is different. In development I could solve the same problem for days, and know the ins and outs of it; as a manager. When I pivoted to management, I understood I have people who know their shit, so I don’t have to worry about the details while I make sure they have everything they need to accomplish our compromises.
I had to learn to let go of the tech work so I could be more effective as a manager. I’d love to talk about Postgres optimization during dinner, but I can’t devote much time to that during the work day. That’s someone else’s job. I’ll just give them the resources.
Yep. Basically you need to respect their time, and not ask them to duplicate the work you’ve already done. This is especially important for executives, but works well on anyone… if you really need someone to do a thing or answer a question, make it easy for them to focus on completing your ask.
Address the email to one person who you need action from.
Tell them succinctly:
Why is this important?
What do you need from them right now?
After that, preemptively provide the answers to any followup questions they might ask - give them further context so they don’t have to dig for it. Don’t ask them to read a whole email string below if you can summarize it.
People are kind of stupid and lazy, and if there’s no immediate benefit for doing something or punishment for skipping it, they’ll do whatever’s easiest. We’re all like this to some degree, in some contexts or other.
It is a little funny to me that some people just don’t have professional standards. I would make a good faith effort to respond completely to a work email because that’s the job. But I don’t think that’s it for a lot of people.
There’s a lot of ADHD and friends in the world, and a lot of it is untreated. They’re not skipping questions out of malice. They’re probably trying their best. Still failing, but trying. That counts for something.
A lot of people also don’t read well. They won’t likely show up on a texty medium like this, but they’re out there. It may be uncomfortable and embarrassing for them to try to read your email, especially if the level of diction is high and the vocabulary extensive. Most people are emotionally kind of fragile, and won’t put up with that shame for very long. I think that’s why a lot of people want to hop on a call or have a meeting when it could’ve just been an email. They can talk fine, but communicating in written words is harder.
For me? Usually it’s because answering the first question on the list took a lot of time, research, or mental energy and I had forgotten there were other questions by the time I finally had the answer written down. Sense of accomplishment, hit send.
I recently emailed my professor about a question on a take home test. I asked for clarification because the wording was weird. I also asked how I should format the answer, and where in the textbook I can find info relating to it. His email back to me just said “the answer is on page 75”. It was not.
That’s what you get for not buying the very latest edition of the textbook. /s
Seriously though, you’re clearly trying to actually comprehend the material, but even the professor was too checked out? I wish I were surprised, but that’s just upsetting. Nobody takes responsibility for education anymore, not the instructors, not the administration, and none but maybe a handful of students who get zero support from either of the above. I’ve learned more from reading on the internet for free than I have from any classroom. But learning for free on one’s own doesn’t give someone a fancy paper that attracts employers. Gotta spend money to make money, yet again.
I’m not sure. Maybe. Sometimes. I don’t know.
I can only tell you that my best results have come from replying with a neutral “Thank you”, then repeating the questions. I prefer it when they answer all my questions, but ultimately, if I want answers, I need to persist, and so I do.
I skip questions I don’t want to answer.
I haven’t done it very often, but the few times I haven’t answered all off the questions in an email has been because some of the questions are a waste of time. I had an engineer recently ask me if I could move the location of where I was running a pipe through a floor grating. Changing the location would have changed nothing, made my job more difficult, and would have been a tripping hazard. All off this could have been avoided if they had gotten or from behind their desk and just gone and looked at what I was working on in person. I ignored their question and sent more pictures of the area. They finally said that I was good to proceed with my original plan.
“can’t change it, I can show you why in person if you come over real quick”
I make a point to ask one question.
First I ask it as the first line.
Then I elaborate on the question, what I mean, and why I’m asking in the body of the email.
Then the last a paragraph is restating the question in a different wording.
If you want to communicate clearly, then put effort into avoiding all ambiguity. If you have many questions, write many emails.
I don’t need to answer all questions that every human shoves at me.
Didn’t know all my old coworkers were on Lemmy lol
If you want me to help you you sure as fuck do. Otherwise figure it out on your own.
Email 1 - 32 words, 3 questions
Email reply - 1 word, zero context, zero answers
Email 2 - *I don’t reply back, youre on your own.
Aight
Ah, to be 6 years old again.
Yes they are that lazy. The average office worker also has the attention span of a gnat. Write shorter emails with fewer questions if you can.
People are lazy, they get so many emails each day, they couldn’t be bothered reading messages properly. I have turned into a cynical annoying person and write emails with large clear action points like this:
Hi, I have some comments and questions.
Please answer 2 (two) questions so that I can proceed with my part of this work. Without an answer to both, no more work will be done and the project will be on hold.
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1. Yes or no- Does this mean that the flibbertygibbet must be completed first?
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2. You need to provide further information on the doohickey because there is not enough detail for me to be able to goober the whatchamacallit
And then keep forwarding the original email every day until I get the required information. When the boss asks why no progress has been made, I can show him the email trail asking for information.
Cover your ass, keep asking the same questions until you get an answer.
TBH this is a bit wordy
Yes
Yesn’t
It’s a mixture of stupidity and laziness.
