I have wanted to blog about this for a long time but I just don’t know how to put it. Also, if I spent time doing this during work everyone would be wondering why I am not doing productive work. So I put this up on my blog, after duty. You know, after some people got fired from their jobs for blogging about work, you sort of get a little concerned for whatever you do in your private life, even when grumbling about your work is still part of your private life to a certain extent.

Anyway, it’s been a long time I have been suffering from email fatigue (and overload) and I dread opening my mailbox these days. Thanks to those who think they are doing everybody a good deed in keeping everyone informed (or reminded) with emails, emails from colleagues are now viewed as:

1. a chore;
2. a source of multi-redundant, repeated, irrelevant information (aka spam);
3. an avenue of passing the buck; and
4. an absolute annnoyance.

Email has therefore ceased to be an instrument of timely, and relevant information thanks to those exceedingly (un)helpful, and email discipline and network-etiquette lacking individuals. In fact, it has become an annoying part of corporate culture. Is it a wonder why more people are now using IM – instant messengers – to pass information in a timely manner? Not to mention that because IM suffers from the very lack of tracking and the ability to be properly documented, it really makes everyone happier because no one can dig out an ancient email you wrote at the fit of anger to crucify you?

The following are some fine examples or specimens of ‘Email Wonders’ experienced either personally or by colleagues regularly. I am quite sure everyone receive emails which are deemed necessary for your knowledge and information. They usually left you scratching your head as to what implications they have to your work. For e.g. what impact is there to Singapore if there’s a server outage in Europe? No further information is given on what Intranet functionality or application is affected. Of course, the poor recipient is expected to discover how and why the information is relevant to him at all!

It is even worse when the emails contains several level of exchanges (sometimes ongoing over a long period) and suddenly forwarded to another person without even the courtesy of a short summary from the forwarder. It doesn’t even contain an FYI or FYA. So the poor guy who received it will then need to spend time reading and figuring out what was going on, only to either discover that it is a piece of information that either has no implication for him entirely, or that he is now required to contact those in the earlier exchange for clarification. What is even more wonderful, is for e.g.

• a mass mail sent from Alex, containing a request to Ben to take certain necessary action;
• a mass mail sent from Charlie, which contains queries on certain matters he made to Daniel; and
• Edwin re-broadcasting an email to a everyone in the department, without even realising that there’s a similar email from Frank lying in his mailbox already. (This really takes the cake!)

And all these mail are just sent to a whole lot of people simply because it is easy to just hit ‘Reply All’ and sent the mails on their merry way. Who cares about the rest of the people on the mailing list anyway?! To these ‘Email Wonders’, it really doesn’t matter that it is exceedingly frustrating and annoying for someone to discover that an email is irrelevant to him or a repeat of information he already has! After all, what is so difficult to just delete these well intentioned ‘FYI’ (not FYA) mails? It doesn’t hurt to spend a few seconds figuring out if it is even relevant at all, right? Is it a wonder why, FYI has now taken on a new meaning – For Your Ignoring or For You (to) Ignore?

Apart from the above ‘Email Wonders’, email is also a convenient way for other sub-section colleagues to pass the buck. For e.g. Gerard sent Helen a mail asking her to perform a task which he could have done himself. A number of people are copied on that mail, so that they are now made aware that the ball is in Helen’s ‘care’, and that this matter is really Helen’s responsibility and not in Gerard’s job description. It doesn’t matter if poor Helen could have knocked off for the day, or she could be on leave. Had Gerard perform the task, the matter would been already resolved there and then, instead of being left dangling, to the chagrin of whoever in need of getting the matter resolved.

Wondeful, isn’t it? If you are one of the f#ck-witted ‘Email Wonders’ described above, to hell with you, alright? Thanks for making the workplace hell when everyone is just trying to make an honest living.

Thanks, but no thanks!

Some gems of ‘great’ management gathered from friends and personal experiences:

1. “Why do you need to elaborate so much on this email? You are wasting time. Just attach the entire exchange, write ‘please advise.’ and let those guys go and read find out for themselves what needs to be done.”

   The sad part is most of the time you either don’t hear a reply from the other party, or they will still write back to ask for clarification. So might as well have done it in the beginning, right? And, summarizing the matter makes it easier for the other party to pick it up too. It saves them the time of having to go through the entire exchange to figure out what’s going on. In fact, to just dump it on them is counterproductive and a wasteful duplicaiton of work which is already done. Don’t agree? Then ask yourself why should you try and figure out what I have already understood all over again.

2. “Just shoot the email to those guys. The idea is to have the email trail to prove that you have taken action. Whether those guys read or take action or not doesn’t matter. If you are taken to task then just take it to the level above them.”

   Sure. Then do it yourself because it’s a vicious cycle. If all you do is forwrd the previous email exchanges with just a ‘please advise.’, ‘fya’ or a blank mail without any meaningful comments, is it a wonder why the other side don’t even bother? Imagine someone taking a whole bunch of files and dump it on your table, and then just walked away without saying something helpful. It’s just plain rude. Also, taking the matter to their immediate superiors may galvanise them into the much desired quick response, but it is more likely that the other party will after that be even more reluctant to act timely on the next request.

3. “It’s very easy to deal with your clients. All you need to do your job well then they cannot touch you.”

   This came from someone who will find all excuses not to show up before the clients and will only do so after he couldn’t find any unfortunate scapegoat to do so. It’s damned easy to say without leading by example. Oh puh-leaze, wanna bluff the ghost to eat tofu also be more tactful, alright?

4. “A leader do not need to be hands on. Just tell your guys to do. Your job is not to show them how to do it. Just tell them to do it.”

   Reminds me of a hypothetical armoured unit CO that says this over the air: ‘All units Alpha Battalion, ATTACK! ATTACK!! ATTACK!!’ and when done, said this to the driver of his own tank: ‘Driver, REVERSE!’. Right.

5. “Do you know a lot of clients complained to me about you and I have to say good things to cover up for you? You should have done these tasks first. Don’t ask me about the nature of the complaints. Just do these for me, geddit? What? Not assigned to you before? You just do this first. Your own tasks can do later.”

   Duh! So, how the poor staff got complained and needs to cover up when he wasn’t even assigned the tasks in the first place? And getting into such a situation like this means ultimately the staff will get complained because he can’t produce what he has promised to his other clients.

6. “I will escalate it to our regional and global support teams.”

   While escalating matters do sometimes get things solved quickly, escalating without first consulting one’s own team the real situation creates problems on its own. Firstly, it makes your own team looks incompetent. If everything needs to be solved by those guys without any effort on the local team’s part, then the local team is redundant. It is good to have redundancy, but it is bad to be redundant. Get the idea?

   Secondly, if it is not an issue related to the regional and global suppor teams, too many such unnecessary escalations gives a ‘crying wolf’ impression and no one takes you seriously in the future. Get a grip man. It’s not so serious that it needs escalation unless the customer threatens to have you burnt on a stake!! And the team will give you a tinker if the matter really requires escalation.

* SIGH * With a management like this, who still needs enemies?

Feel free to email me with your own experiences. But please, don’t send me self-glorifying bullshit about your long suffering and how important and nice you are for doing something for your stupid boss, alright?