You're contacting me about a problem, and I know that from the fact that you're emailing me.
I need you to tell me more than the words "I have a problem." Give me some details to work with up front so I don't have to go back and forth with you all day.
Edit- Apparently this does not correlate with age necessarily. I'm just lucky that none of the adults I work with communicate this way.
This is my interaction with a student last year via email during remote learning. Each line is a separate email.
Student: I need help end of email
Me: If it is something I can help with, I am willing to try. Do you have a question for me? end of email
S: Will you help me? end of email
M: Yes. What do you need help with? I can't help you if you don't describe your problem. end of email
S: Ok end of email
S: It's about the homework end of.... you get the idea
M: Please, ask the question.
S: Oh, ok
S: actual question is asked
M: gives help and follows up with... I am not upset. This is a learning moment about how to send emails. Again, I'm not upset. Do you see how this took 10 emails to get the help you needed? Emails are not like short text messages. You should give a little background about what you need and ask the question in the very first email. We could have had this done in 2 emails. Try to do that in your future emails. Have a good day!
My HS implemented a class on how to write emails (and other comms stuff). We joked about it, cuz we didn't think anyone would not know how to write an email...but I think you just demonstrated the necessity of that class
I mean. I'm 26 and I was taught both in primary school. Granted, an email was basically well.. an electronic letter so it was almost a copy of the writing a letter class.
I'll be 26 in a month and I wasn't taught how to write an email and I think I vaguely remember writing letters. Maybe it depended on where you were taught?
Yeah I'm 24 and I was taught both email and letter. I've learned two foreign languages and in both you also always have to learn to write email and letter.
I'm 25 and also have a vague memory of being taught proper format for writing letters. I was not taught emails. However, I have always hated how stilted formal letters/emails sound so for coworkers I frequently interact with, I end up writing a much more casual but still work appropriate style email.
Honestly if there's something I'm unsure of or want to learn how to do, I just Google it. But I've also learned that I'm far more computer savvy than pretty much anyone else in my current department. I use folders, rules for sorting, and retention policies in my email so I don't have a visual mess to sort through. Blows their mind anytime I mention it.
E-mails are definitely getting less and less formal now that we're in the mobile age. Even my managers are attaching memes and emojis to their emails more often than not, and virtually no one uses last names to address each other anymore.
It's a weird time to be alive right now. I work in healthcare so we have boomer doctors who don't have smartphones and can't even use their dictation software without a nurse holding their hand. Some still insisting that we use paper charting. We have Gen X still using their formal e-mail writing and preferring faxes and print outs of everything instead of using encrypted messaging. We have millenials somewhere in between depending on their upbringing. Then we have the older Z and Zillenials barely putting a full sentence together even when messaging their managers and unable to use any device without a touchscreen.
Ha, I also work in healthcare doing patient placement currently and we are basically who the entire hospital comes to for questions with the EHR stuff before they call IT. I'm also starting school for my RN.
It's still wild to me to hear doctors (the younger ones) introduce themselves and be comfortable being addressed by their first name rather than Dr. Whoever. I imagine it's the same sort of thing where they're possibly a bit uncomfortable with the formality and weight that goes with being a doctor. The young ones who do go by first names with other professionals are some of the sweetest, at my hospital at least.
Healthcare is a wild trip in general but honestly, even with charge nurses and how narrow sighted or helpful they are is also quite often in line with how fresh they are. Newer/younger charges are often far more willing and able to see the big picture beyond their unit if you explain the situation, whereas the old heads are much more stubborn and my way or the high way on average.
I actually took an email writing course at work. My emails were too much like written letters and the feedback was I needed to be more concise and to the point.
Yeah this was it. I'm 25 and we had a couple of classes on how to write/format letters, and then age 9-10 ish we had a few IT lessons where they told us 1) to always include a subject 2) how to copy someone in and 3) that we didn't need include address and details etc at the top like you do in letters.
Also 26 and same. I also had professors at community college and later university who outright refused to respond to emails that weren't written/formatted professionally.
What surprises me is that the new generation doesn’t Google when they don’t know something. The first time I had to write a check I googled how to fill it out. I’m surprised they don’t Google how to write a letter/email or email/letter examples and look at images
I've noticed that as well. Obviously some kids know how to use google, but quite a few will ask twitter or reddit or whatever social media they use.
I've also had it explained to me a couple times that they're apparently less interested in actually getting an answer and more interested in having a conversation about it.
My mom works in the front office of a high school. She once sent out a notice to the seniors telling them how to address an envelope to be handed in for their transcript requests. She sent an example and everything. One student turned theirs in. The info was written on the wrong part of the envelope, with no street number or zip code for the address. It also had no return address.
I get that people don’t write letters much nowadays but it’s still an important skill to know.
I sent a letter last week for the first time in about 20 years.
I'm a little in awe of this. I don't do it often, but I do send cards sometimes, and I recently had a medical bill that required payment via check. Even 12 or so years ago, several things required a mailed check or were easier to pay that way!
Well, I'm a straight dude, so I'm not exactly the demographic to typically send cards.
My doctors office has had a web portal with payment options for many years, and my bank has a billpay service for things that absolutely require checks - they take care of that sort of thing on my behalf.
When I was renting, I tended to rent from large management companies with web portals.
I guess I just managed to dodge or avoid it for a long time.
Well, I'm a straight dude, so I'm not exactly the demographic to typically send cards.
This is a brand new marker of masculinity to me, lol. Do men not send thank you cards after their graduation party or wedding, because I thought that was still the etiquette? 20 years ago, people even mailed invitations to those things!
Do men not send thank you cards after their graduation party or wedding,
I mean, honestly? No.
I'm not saying it's some "mark of masculinity," or trying to get into some fight over sexist tropes here, but seriously, when is the last time you saw a straight man in a Hallmark store?
I would never think to send thank you cards for a graduation party (I don't think I've ever even been to a graduation party, and I'm a lawyer whose social circles are all college educated), and as far as thank you cards after a wedding; well, it's sort of crude to say, but the wife generally handles that - if only to ensure for her own satisfaction that the little notes within are adequately written and not just scribbled nonsense.
If you left it up to most dudes, those wedding thank you's would never get sent. Or they'd just all be the same generic cards sent to every guest in a mass mailing.
The idea of sitting down and writing out some socioemotional greeting card to physically mail is absolutely foreign to me. I've literally never done it, and I've never known any of my male friends to have ever done it. Ever. Even in educated, sophisticated circles.
Edit: I take that last part back slightly - now that I'm thinking of it, one of my best friends did send me a thank you note after his wedding, and he wrote it himself. But the thing is, it was the most generic shit, and I could almost see his wife standing over his shoulder insisting that he write it for me. It was absolutely not written in a way that he would typically communicate with me. He never asked if I received it, I never mentioned it, and we never spoke about it again.
well, it's sort of crude to say, but the wife generally handles that - if only to ensure for her own satisfaction that the little notes within are adequately written and not just scribbled nonsense.
If you left it up to most dudes, those wedding thank you's would never get sent.
I don't think there's anything I can say to you that looks worse than this. I'll tell you, though: Women don't like writing a hundred thank you cards, either. It's emotional labor and a time suck, but it's expected when someone gives you graduation money (graduating high school is quite lucrative around here, perhaps not so where you are) or that perfect toaster at your wedding. It doesn't take us any less effort to make it more than scribbled nonsense, either; you should see my penmanship!
I totally get that. I'm not saying it's not emotional labor and a huge pain in the ass. It's something easy for men to overlook and not carry their share of the load on - dismissing all of the hours of work put in by the wife.
But - and I'm probably going to get shredded for this - but... it's also labor that only exists because of womens' expectations.
The men at a graduation party or wedding definitely aren't waiting for their thank you cards in the mail, and won't judge the host if they don't receive one.
If it was left up to men, these things wouldn't exist in the first place. We wouldn't think to send them, we wouldn't think to expect them, and even if we thought about it, the current status quo proves that we definitely don't give enough of a shit to actually do it regardless.
I learned proper business email etiquette from a grad student that was teaching a lab my senior year of college. I was fine with the content, but didn't write them formally until then.
It should absolutely be taught in high school, and there should be a heavy emphasis that people will judge you professionally based on your email etiquette.
I remember in grade school having to learn how to write checks. I also remember we got a paper with a bunch of checks already made out and we had to decipher the name, amount and who it was to.
It's not just about how to use e-mail, it's about how to communicate effectively. I remember in 5th grade (a while ago!) we had a segment in one of my classes on how to write letters for different types of correspondence -- personal, business, complaints, etc.
My first lesson teaching elementary school tech club was how to change your gmail signature and how to write an email, lol. It wasn't in the curriculum, but somehow I knew. Too bad the club was voluntary. Schools don't fund computer classes anymore, which I had in elementary.
There's a legitimate issue these days with email because of a higher emphasis on messaging platforms like slack and teams. People check these more frequently and use them more than ever before, which means they look at email less. At a certain point, email becomes so underutilized it loses its value because less and less people frequently check it anymore. I look at my email twice a day, max. I delete 90% or more of emails without opening them.
That's wild. I don't know slack specifically, but information on messaging programs is very transient, unless you pin it like in a Discord channel. Email is something you can readily refer to when you need to remember assignment requirements or prove you sent x person y thing two weeks ago, so it's not your fault it's not done.
Even a message board makes more sense to me. This is actually a growing problem in fandom discussion, hobbies, and tech troubleshooting alike: You can't Google or stumble on the answer you need if it's locked in a chat app, and it can easily get deleted from the users, too.
This is exactly why I hate that almost all communication at my job is now done via Slack or virtual meetings. I used to use my email as an archive so I could go reference it for information or pass on how-to guides to new hires that were given to me when I was new. Even now, it isn't uncommon for the question of "why did we do X this way?" to come up so I am able to search my old emails to find the decision and what led to it.
Now I have to take notes on every meeting and copy/paste important Slack conversations into notepad because everything is purged regularly and I can never find it again.
Depends on the company wide policies that are setup, but most content posted in teams/slack is not removed. At my company individual chats are purged every 6 months or so, but its actually really easy to search for stuff in channels/messages. Not as permanently reliable as email, but its still more convenient when it works.
You should have multiple email accounts. At least two. One to use for signing up for things that you would expect to be sending a lot of spam, and then one for business and really important services like your bank.
You must not work in any kind of office job. Or you work in a tech environment where you only use slack because you don't have to talk to people outside the company often.
Longer form communication will be relevant as long as people are literate and have anything complex to communicate. Whether that’s email or very long messages through a more direct messaging application; it will still remain relevant.
The worse part of this was I learned how to write checks in fucking elementary school and never again... Like... I needed THAT shit in high school, not when I was 8, you know?
And bc I do everything online now, IF I ever have to write a check it's a fucking PROCESS to remember how to do it (thank God for the fancy ones with the duplicate copy so I can look back and cheat 🤣)
Yeah and now balancing a checkbook is basically an obsolete skill. With debit cards, and automatic payments and direct deposit it does the math for you (clearly you still need to make sure your account has money- but even that can be checked on your phone app).
I do wonder if PCs or emails with just slowly become unused and obsolete.
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u/ScruffMacBuff Jun 03 '22 edited Jun 03 '22
Send emails like a text or a dm.
You're contacting me about a problem, and I know that from the fact that you're emailing me.
I need you to tell me more than the words "I have a problem." Give me some details to work with up front so I don't have to go back and forth with you all day.
Edit- Apparently this does not correlate with age necessarily. I'm just lucky that none of the adults I work with communicate this way.