A Pet Peeve

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A Pet Peeve

January 28, 2013 by Dr. Crazy

If you send a colleague an email on Friday afternoon about scheduling something for late March/ early April, perhaps trust your colleague to respond to that email early in the next work week. Because as much as you want to get this thing scheduled, this is not a time-sensitive urgent email to which to respond at the end of January. It’s totally ok that I don’t respond to this sort of email immediately, and certainly ok if I don’t respond to this email over the weekend. And sending email after email (something like five emails in the course of three days, all asking the same freaking question) about this issue only makes me want to be passive aggressive and stall because you know what? Your time is not more valuable than my time is. Stop pestering me! I promise, I understand that this thing needs to be scheduled, and I fully intend to respond to you. But no, this is not at the top of my list of priorities. And the more emails you send me, the further down the list it goes.

Posted in Tantrums | 6 Comments

6 Responses

on January 28, 2013 at 11:34 am Comradde PhysioProffe

Srsly. Fucke thatte noise.
on January 28, 2013 at 2:05 pm Historiann

HA-ha.

I’d be tempted to reply with an email that said, “excuse me, but WHICH meeting exactly were you trying to schedule?” just to get the offender to send the message again.

You should send this person a link to Tenured Radical’s post about pointless email clutter from last week.
on January 28, 2013 at 2:33 pm professorsusan

That hurts. I’ve tried NOT to immediately respond to emails that I don’t think are vital…
on January 28, 2013 at 2:59 pm undinenotofgeneralinterest

If you reply on a weekend, it just encourages their micro-pestering tendencies. Just say no to weekend email!
on January 28, 2013 at 10:53 pm Dr. Crazy

H’Ann, I was passive aggressive and refused the original date that people were thinking about for an ostensibly religious reason that I don’t really care about. I’m not proud, but it’s what I did. I may have a conversation with the colleague who perpetrated this email explosion, for she is untenured and I could couch it in terms of mentoring, but I don’t want it to seem like a reprimand. I would have been more direct in my resistance if it were a colleague at my rank, which might seem odd, but honestly, I don’t want this to be about rank: I just want it to STOP.

Undine: I DO say no to weekend emails! Totally! It’s worth noting that my students don’t even bother emailing me on the weekend unless it’s an emergency. They also don’t tend to email me after 5 pm, because they learn pretty quickly that unless it’s a true emergency they don’t get a response. But some colleagues seem to think anything that they care about is an emergency, regardless of how it relates to other people. Which is… annoying.
on January 29, 2013 at 7:28 pm nicoleandmaggie

Passive-aggressive email tagline?

–Lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on mine.

or maybe something more zen encouraging relaxation