I’m Starting to Hate Email | Hacker News Reader

I’m Starting to Hate Email

reynoldsftw.com

12 pointsmootymoots15 comments

I was hoping for some serious complaints that a startup might be able to offer technical solutions for, but most of the author's issues are pretty trivial.

One point he makes does bring up an interesting question though. The author complains about people using one-letter signatures instead of their name. What's the point of signing an email with your name when you're using your own email account? The from header is generally set to include your name already.

Probably the same reason one would sign a handwritten letter, even when its envelope has one's name on the return address. Could just be tradition.

Not the best analogy - you can throw away the envelope and with the letter being signed you still know who it is from, putting your name at the end does serve a purpose.

It's just standard etiquette. I was taught to write emails like letters, starting with "Dear Someone" and ending by signing my name. Both parts are redundant, but I guess it's supposed to make the email seem more personal. I agree that it's generally a waste of time, but I can't predict if the recipient would be offended if I left those parts out, so I usually put them in.

Nobody ever taught me to write emails, so I never got in a habit like that. I don't suppose there's any way to know if anybody has been offended by my email style, but I think I'd judge anyone who was not worth talking to. This is why I'm not in sales.

Email is an interesting beast. Most threads I'm involved in start out very formal with the requisite 'Dear So-and-so' at the beginning and some sort of formal-ish signature. But by the third back and forth, most people abandon the formalities and start signing with just their name, or not at all. I prefer not to have to bother, as it has been noted, my full name and email appear in the mail headers, and I use proper top quoting format whenever possible.

A huge one I learned: You can't convince someone to change their mind over email. It has to be in person.

(I'm talking about strongly-held decisions or beliefs here. Not the sort of thing where a simple presentation of the facts will do.)

More precisely, he's starting to hate the sort of careless people he emails with on a regular basis. It reminds me of when people complain about crap on Twitter, but fail to realize it's down to following the wrong people.

The other thing that drives me nuts are emails that aren't actionable. I have enough trouble keeping up with email where it's obvious what's next...

I love email and I let everyone know.

I don't chat, text, or tweet. I don't have a land line any more. Only a few people have my cell phone #. My office phone goes directly to voice mail.

But email is a different story. I don't have instant notification, so it doesn't interrupt me. I check it when I'm ready and I respond quickly, sometimes immediately, almost always within 24 hours. Modern spam filters have made this a breeze.

I bet about half the people I know I have never met, I don't know what they look like, and I've never heard their voice. But we have conducted so much business by email that I feel that I still know them well.

I remember that before email, getting something done was as much a matter of managing interruptions as focusing on the task at hand.

But email has helped me to once again become the master of my own time. I can't imagine getting much done any other way.

[I love hearing from all hn'ers by email. You will get a reply. And you can sign your email any way you want.]

I agree with the signature part in emails where people talk about "Please think about the environment before printing this email." And some people have some grand quotes of this and that. My college's admin staff were notorious for doing this.

I find that utterly annoying.

Why the author is starting to hate email: problems exist between keyboard and chair.

- I print emails, when they contain some information I will need while say driving somewhere.

- I use colors which help with Question / Answer situations.

- I use single letter sign offs when on a cellphone responding.

- I use some txt speach when on a cellphone, not too crazy because sometimes thinking of a clever abbreviation is more painful than just writing the damn word out, also autocomplete helps. I also explicitly tell people that "u" is ok or "ur" or "k" or something in that nature, but things I can't figure out within 20 seconds are not.

So yea, reply to shitty txt speach "I dont get it, please say again without abbreviations" it annoys because they have to send it twice.

Reply to a shitty colored email with a massively colored one.

Single letter signoffs... wait what bothers you about this?

>I used to be a big offender in this area, but am a true convert that if you can say something on the phone or face to face, then you should do it. Only use email to communicate when you need some kind of record, or cannot deal with it verbally otherwise.

You always want "some kind of record". A record isn't a "ha ha, told you so" thing, but it keeps communications accurate and accountable. We've all dealt with situations where FUBARs happened because verbal communications were misinterpreted, or people simply lied because they knew there was little accountability.

Starting to?

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