Responding to Emails

I've had the unfortunate experience lately of having a number of people not feel it necessary to respond to my emails.  Or, not to respond to my emails in a timely manner.

In general there is no set rule on how quickly emails should be answered, but I do think there's general etiquette and respect that can be followed by everyone.  I do not think it is unreasonable to respond to emails within 48 to 72 hours.  Keep in mind that these initial responses do not need to include full and complete answers to the original emails.  They can simply include acknowledgment that the original email was received and you are looking into the matter.

This is what I consider to be respect.  Respect for the person sending the email, but also respect for whatever type of position you have.  If you are employed in a certain profession, your actions help create the overall reputation for that profession.  Remember, chains are only as strong as their weakest link -- don't be the weak link that brings your whole profession down and gives it a bad reputation.  Or worse, helps its existing bad reputation continue.  

And for the love of all things holy, do NOT use the "I'm really busy" excuse.  YOU are not the only one who is busy.  YOU are not the only one who has a lot of things on the go.  You may have your own priorities, but so does everyone else.  YOUR priorities are NOT more important than anyone else's, no matter what your position is in comparison to anyone else.

The worst part about using the "I'm really busy" excuse is it assumes you actually know everything there is to know about the person to whom you're too busy to deal with.  By saying you're too busy to deal with them, you're implying that you are more busy than they are.  Yet in reality you probably don't know that person well enough to truly know what's going on in their life and how busy they may be.

Not being able to answer emails within 48-72 hours and claiming it's because you're so busy also implies (a) you have bad time management skills or (b) you have too much on your plate.  Either way, it's not anyone else's fault that you either can't manage your time effectively or have taken on too much, it's yours.  Yes, maybe there's an underlying reason why you have too much on your plate and can't handle it, but that doesn't mean you throw respect out the window and resort to being "that person" who ignores people.

I've had a lot of different jobs in my time and I've met some insanely busy people.  Oddly, some of the busiest people I've met have been the most responsive via email or other forms of communication.  Either because they have help, they've figured out how to manage their time to respond to their emails, or because they've figured out that ignoring emails is disrespectful and that's not the sort of person they want to be.  Whatever the reasons why they were able to be responsive, it demonstrates that the "I'm really busy" excuse is just that, an excuse.

As is probably obvious by now, this lack of response via email has escalated to the point of extreme annoyance and frustration for me.  It makes me feel disrespected and unimportant.  And I don't like feeling that way, it's not fun.  I don't know why my emails are not responded to.  Did the other person receive them?  Were they lost in cyberspace?  Did the other person see it and then ignore it, or did they not notice it at all?  Are they waiting for something before responding?  Is there a reason why they can't let me know they're waiting for something?  Did they accidentally delete my email and are waiting for me to follow-up?  Are they categorizing their emails somehow and I'm in the "don't care" category?  Did they see who the email was from and have deleted it?  Did they think they responded but didn't actually respond?  The point is I'm left in limbo not actually knowing what's going on at the other end.

You might be thinking to yourself, "why doesn't she contact them in another way"?  Excellent question.  One, in the case of some folks I don't have any other way to contact them.  And two, in the case of other folks the only other way I potentially have to contact them is during a very limited timeframe that is either too far away and I need a response sooner.  Either way I'm SOL.