Agonotheta

Don't Call Me, I'll Call You

February 23, 2005

One of my workplace pet peeves is when somebody emails me and a short time later calls or stops by to say, "hey, I emailed you." To which, I typically respond, "Cool."

Then they start to talk about their email. I've decided I'm going to start telling people to either stop by or email, but not both. I can't handle it. It's so frustrating. This happened twice yesterday. TWICE. On two separate occasions somebody emailed me and then stopped by within an hour to talk about it. I sat there and didn't respond to them until they shut up, then I answered with:

"Let me check. You emailed me at 1:22. It is now 2:04. To be perfectly honest with you, I haven't even read your email. I'm too busy working to read all my email the second I receive it and respond to it and all the other emails simultaneously. From now on, after you email me, please allow me to contact you before you contact me."

The other occasion, the person simply stopped by to say, "I emailed you." That's all. I emailed you. Five minutes after she emailed it. It takes five minutes to walk from her office to my office. So she basicly hit "Send" and then walked down here to tell me about it. What the hell? What do you say to that?

From now on, I'm just going to ignore them when they come in my office. And when they try to get my attention say, "Oh, I'm sorry I was reading and responding to email."