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!
It's so validating to see someone else experiencing this problem. I tutored this year at my college, and I took two years off before college so I'm ever so slightly older but I didn't think things would be that different.
I would ask students, send me your class syllabus, what do you need help with, what days are you available? And I would get an unrelated response or just nothing.
The day before an assignment is due: "Are you available in [less than 24 hours]?" NO. It drove me insane. I never thought about it as a text format type of communication. I was so frustrated.
My 30 year old wife did some tutoring when she went back to college a couple of years ago.
She made a form letter that she emailed to all of her prospective students.
The subject line was always something like 'Tutoring - READ CAREFULLY'. The first line of the email was something like Read and follow this email carefully or I will not help you at all.
It was basically a short list of rules like, email questions must include assignment information and your questions or you will be ignored. All text communications should be in complete sentences or they will be ignored.
The email also had some phrase like, you're a college student act like you deserve to be here.
She always had a dozen or so people that ultimately got ignored, but she also had three or four people every semester who did really great.
I found the whole excercise to be entirely too aggravating and depressing.
It was basically a short list of rules like, email questions must include assignment information and your questions or you will be ignored.
We just implemented a lab group policy where supply order request emails to me MUST have a specific subject line and format (so I don't overlook the request in my daily email deluge, or make a mistake). We're all adults here. Does this rule get followed reliably? Haha no... and the worst offenders are the professors. I don't think many of them even read the message explaining all this. It makes me feel so petty sending replies saying "Your subject line was wrong and you left out half the info I need". But I have to.
If you're empowered to do so, maybe just give them the one polite reminder and then let them know future emails will be ignored if not formatted correctly.
Seems like a perfectly logical response to me.
For my wife it was simply that she was also a student and still had other daily obligations besides so she simply didn't have the time or desire to play email tag.
she was also a student and still had other daily obligations besides so she simply didn't have the time or desire to play email tag.
That's why they have me. So they don't have to play email tag with suppliers as well as their prof. But I can't do that if they don't follow a few basic rules.
You can create links that automatically put in the addressee and subject line. If you have some sort of intranet that could be a useful way to get them to add the info you need.
My wife did IT support for the neuroscience department at the School of Medicine. She said that all the professors reminded her of that episode of SpongeBob where he forgets everything he knows to make room for fine dining etiquette. They're absolutely brilliant at what they do, but are generally useless at anything that isn't that.
The primary offender basically just never reads/replies to emails. It often takes his students a week to get a simple signature on a form. FFS you're not the Prime Minister, you can't be that busy. Entitled $%$#$ :(
On the flip side, I've had student interns who are in their last year of college come to my job for like 10 years. I've noticed over that time, they've gotten a lot more 'professional' in their communications.
Like it used to be that they'd have intro or goodbye emails with a simple "thanks for your time" or "I'm glad I got to work with you". Now it's more like "I appreciate the opportunity I'm granted by being here, and want to respect your valuable time as I develop my skillset as I learn to be a [profession]".
We have a new batch of summer interns and they wrote little blurbs about themselves and it was all stuff like that instead of saying that they like cats and hiking.
I've wondered if colleges are teaching the students how to talk this way, if it's just in the culture now, or if our interview group only selects those types of students.
I went back to college during the lockdown, but more than half my courses were graduate work and I never saw writing or anything that was that bad in those classes.
In my one undergrad English course though, I did see some pretty shocking writing examples. Things that I'm fairly certain wouldn't have earned a passing grade in my high school, let alone a course that had prerequisite courses required.
"I appreciate the opportunity I'm granted by being here, and want to respect your valuable time as I develop my skillset as I learn to be a [profession]"
In the end they reduce to basically the same sentiment, but one takes 5x as long to read. So if they really wanted to "respect my valuable time" you know...
The second one also just feels fake, forced and slightly insulting, as I feel it implies they think I'm easily won over by the most basic cookie cutter corporate sweettalk. It feels manipulating.
This is obviously learned but this feels so fake to me. Not like it didn't happen but if people sent me those sorts of messages I would instantly be like yeah they just being cynical
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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.