We had much more uniform email etiquette at work than i have from my assortment of volunteer gigs, clubs, etc.
I had a supervisor a couple of jobs ago that NEVER bothered to fill in the subject line in any of the emails that he sent out. I found it very annoying. Given that we weren’t exactly besties and I’m kind of a pessimistic person to begin with, every time I would see an email from him, I would always assume it was something terrible and scary.
Along similar lines, I dislike receiving texts from friends/associates that say, “Do you have time at 4:00 or 4:30 for a call?”
Do they have a vital question? Am I going to be invited to dinner? Did the FBI come to them asking questions about me? Do they need help hiding a body? Or are they simply lonely? Maybe standing on a ledge wanting to be talked down?
Good general advice.
I do that. But … I include either an expected duration or a general topic or both. And whether it’s urgent or not.
Most of the people I’d be calling are far busier than I am, so a cold-call probably results in no answer, or worse yet, them feeling socially obligated to answer, then after I finish my intro, them informing me they don’t have time to talk.
I’d much rather we exchange a couple of 15-scond texts over the course of a day to establish a time for the substantive call.
But yeah, the raw “Can I call you at [whenever]” is both stupid and irritating.
If an email chain shifts subject (and the subject is short enough) I’ll add to the subject line. It makes it easier to remember weeks later.
Let’s see, did I say “frustrating”? No, I did not, so that’s not what I’m saying.
I would rather have consistency so I can take the same action for each email and look in the same place for the payload.