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Comment by jillesvangurp | Hacker News Reader

> Then I guess you didn't deal with much of the empty-headed-managment type much.

I worked in a big multinational at the time ;-). So, yes. Mostly my direct managers were alright. Some were excellent even. But organizational politics and learning to read between the lines is part of working inside of big organizations.

> You get a short reply that is a reply on a 1 sentence you wrote, twisted upside down ignoring completly the point that you had.

Usually a clear sign that you are not communicating effectively. If it's important to you, you might want to figure out how to fix it. Talking is usually a good way.

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> Usually a clear sign that you are not communicating effectively

Agreed. I learned that in emails, a multi-paragraph, multi-item text means the recipient will randomly reply to only one of the points (often the least important one). So an effective email will make a single point, in as brief a manner as possible.

This defines "communicating effectively" in a way that it can't possibly cover a complex topic. Sometimes you need to communicate complex topics, so this definition is a failure. The problem remains that people refuse to do the reading required for their job.

> This defines "communicating effectively" in a way that it can't possibly cover a complex topic [...] so this definition is a failure.

Indeed, I don't think email can be reliably used to convey complex topics.

> The problem remains that people refuse to do the reading required for their job.

Communicating effectively means accepting common flaws of people who are unlikely to change, and delivering your message in the most effective way. Whether people are right or wrong or should be fired (as another comment says) is not truly relevant.

I often fail, by the way. I'm not saying I have this all figured out.

I don't think these people read the official documents either, though.

Adjusting communication to the audience is a good guiding principle, but not an absolute. There comes a point where no attempt at communication works for a given audience. If the communication must happen nevertheless, then the audience must change, whether through training or replacement.

I wish this were simply a fireable offense and we were expected to read. These kind of people who act like reading 3 paragraphs is being asked to swallow glass make me blindingly mad. They should be unemployed.

I’m usually very tolerant of others’ varying capacities, but 100% this. High-school level reading and comprehension shouldn’t be a hard ask for professionals.

Sending a wall of text in an email is, IME, ~never^1 the right thing to do. If more than a fraction of colleagues fall into that bad habit, soon all anyone will be doing is email. Let alone if you try to respond to one of the too many points in an overlong message, or loop someone else into the conversation(s) which are now hopelessly fragmented. It's akin to a self-inflicted DoS attack.

1. Exceptions do exist (eg if the message is intended solely for and addressed to a single recipient, and includes a disclaimer / request / reminder about general email hygiene), but they're vanishingly rare.

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