Communication failures
This kind of communication blockage has happened to me far too often recently and yesterday provided another great example.
I asked some questions of Pam in an email and she replied that I should contact Jane for those answers, and even CCed Jane on the reply which was lovely. I thought I'd spontaneously hear back from Jane but did not in a couple days so I sent an email to Jane saying "hello, can we talk about those issues? How about Friday at 1pm?". I included my phone number in the email because I wasn't sure if she was more of a phone or email person, and I wanted replies to my questions soon.
That night I check my voicemail after dinner and there is one from Jane saying "Hi, I'm calling in response to your email", which phrase already has me grinding my teeth, and then she says "oh, nevermind I'll just reply to your email" and hangs up. Sure enough, I look at Mail and have a new message -- oh, it's Jane, and her email says nothing besides "here is my phone number". Two replies from her, should be good news, but instead it's completely useless. Does either reply from her actually address meeting on Friday at 1pm? Nope, why leave information in a reply instead of just pinging me back?
What are voicemail and email messages for? Reply to my actual question, please! Especially when you're unlikely to be available when I return the call. We could have a time-delayed conversation instead of just endless "call me back"s.
This has been frustrating me for weeks. Multiple business vendors with online contact info but who respond only to the phone; multiple vm and email messages with no content. With one hard-to-reach person I'd left a message that explicitly said "if I don't pick up please leave the answer on my voicemail", and he left me a "call me" message instead. I asked him why later, and he said he just figured I'd get back to him eventually. This is a business owner who is making money from my transactions and he still isn't particularly in a hurry to answer my questions.
So this morning I call Jane back, and in a half-hour phone call that starts with a rant about how she is so busy that she's much busier than most people are when they say they're so busy, she eventually reveals that she isn't even the right person to ask about these questions! Why the hell she couldn't have replied to that first email saying this I do not know. Instead we had four or five messages back and forth which served no purpose at all except to waste my time and fuel her I'm-too-busy rant. I still don't have the information I need, trying to draft a question for Pam that doesn't start with "what the bloody hell", trying to talk my jaw into un-clenching.
I asked some questions of Pam in an email and she replied that I should contact Jane for those answers, and even CCed Jane on the reply which was lovely. I thought I'd spontaneously hear back from Jane but did not in a couple days so I sent an email to Jane saying "hello, can we talk about those issues? How about Friday at 1pm?". I included my phone number in the email because I wasn't sure if she was more of a phone or email person, and I wanted replies to my questions soon.
That night I check my voicemail after dinner and there is one from Jane saying "Hi, I'm calling in response to your email", which phrase already has me grinding my teeth, and then she says "oh, nevermind I'll just reply to your email" and hangs up. Sure enough, I look at Mail and have a new message -- oh, it's Jane, and her email says nothing besides "here is my phone number". Two replies from her, should be good news, but instead it's completely useless. Does either reply from her actually address meeting on Friday at 1pm? Nope, why leave information in a reply instead of just pinging me back?
What are voicemail and email messages for? Reply to my actual question, please! Especially when you're unlikely to be available when I return the call. We could have a time-delayed conversation instead of just endless "call me back"s.
This has been frustrating me for weeks. Multiple business vendors with online contact info but who respond only to the phone; multiple vm and email messages with no content. With one hard-to-reach person I'd left a message that explicitly said "if I don't pick up please leave the answer on my voicemail", and he left me a "call me" message instead. I asked him why later, and he said he just figured I'd get back to him eventually. This is a business owner who is making money from my transactions and he still isn't particularly in a hurry to answer my questions.
So this morning I call Jane back, and in a half-hour phone call that starts with a rant about how she is so busy that she's much busier than most people are when they say they're so busy, she eventually reveals that she isn't even the right person to ask about these questions! Why the hell she couldn't have replied to that first email saying this I do not know. Instead we had four or five messages back and forth which served no purpose at all except to waste my time and fuel her I'm-too-busy rant. I still don't have the information I need, trying to draft a question for Pam that doesn't start with "what the bloody hell", trying to talk my jaw into un-clenching.