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I am trying to think of a comedy way to reply to a supervisor who sits 4 feet away but emails asking about this or that rather than speaking. Plus copied in her boss and the section - that part is just arse covering; I do find it mildly amusing if somewhat odd.
So, you lot always come up with amusing responses – do your best please
She's keeping an email trail and her boss would probably approve
I replied “if you see me around the office, grab me and we chat about it”
(The person in question sits opposite me about 5 feet away, facing me.)
She’s keeping an email trail and her boss would probably approve
^^^ That right there ^^^
Go up to her desk and deliver a verbal response - every time. Then send email that says simply "we spoke - thanks".
Trust levels high in your office ?
It is possible to modify managers behaviour. My staff try to do it to me. I want to hug them for it but you aren't allowed to do that.
She’s keeping an email trail and her boss would probably approve
+1
I often follow up chats or phone calls with an email restating what was said.
Go up to her desk and deliver a verbal response – every time. Then send email that says simply “we spoke – thanks”.
This. Every time. Until it stops.
It is overwhelmingly within your interests to formalise everything via email.
There's many reasons to conduct conversations via email, not least the one you mentioned yourself in your OP. But if it was something trivial or otherwise could be handled by a quick chat I'd just reply "I'm sitting right here!" or similar. Obviously, any 'witty' replies would depend on your relationship with your boss, she could just think you're being an arse.
In honesty, I wish more people used email. It's invaluable in "you said this" / "no I didn't" situations. Plus depending on the people it can actually be quicker, I have two colleagues both of whom are incapable of having short conversations. One I suspect is just lonely, he has nothing to say to me but is quite able to do that for North of an hour. He rang me the other day with a simple yes / no question, it took him 11 minutes to ask it.
The "e" in e-mail stands for evidence. I always follow up a conversation with an email to document what was discussed and agreed, so when someone asks "why the hell did you do that" I can point to the email that says "that's what we discussed and you asked me to do"
pretty sure it stands for electronic. non electronic mail would be evidence too.
There's one for the OP - reply by letter. Through internal mail if you're feeling responsive.
Reply by letter: You send a letter. Your boss receives it. They scan it into PDF format. They attach it to an email. They send the email to you to ask you to confirm what you said in the letter.
The boss isn't going to want to store bits of paper just in case things are needed later on.. They want it electronically so it is backed up via the servers and there forever.
I have to deal with this quite often – a colleague who loves a “cc everyone” and also another who loves a bit of an aggressively toned email (again to everyone) starting just with “name”, rather than “hi”.
In both instances, I always push back with a reply to all, super bright and breezy “Hi XXXXX, hope you’re having a fantastic week so far?” etc etc, then into the body of my reply, again full of smilies and niceties.
Bit of a power game, but shows them that they can’t weaponise email to try and undermine or disempower. And you can never get in trouble for being friendly.
what andyrm says - stay cheerful, give full and (if possible over detailed) replies - no one cc'd in is going to pay any attention after the first few but t shows your complying and leaves a paper trail of what you said you'd do in response to a request.
If you get snarky all that senior managers will see is someone being awkward.
(you also don;t know this person hasn't been asked to put everything in writing for senior managers to have visibility of - perhaps they're being performance managed?)
What's the issue with going with the flow, use email to interact with her? People have different communication preferences. I've had colleagues who were 100% verbal, managing all the deskside interrupts and chats was a pain, and as people say, I had no records of anything so added to my workload keeping notes and managing it.
We worked in a very busy incident response centre, all in a room. Pretty much all the interactions were via IM, email etc. We wouldn't have handled the workload otherwise. And post-incident, when you have to explain what the team did in front of the big bosses, everything is recorded.
Would you prefer to be interrupted every two minutes?
I'd far prefer to have emails that I can respond to when I reach a natural break point than have people shout whenever the next thing pops into their heads.
Does she have a desk phone? Give her a ring to discuss it further.
I was in an office the other week where one person rang someone at the other end of the office - about 15 meters away. I was right at the mid-point and there wasn't anyone else talking in the whole office It took me a while to realise what was going on - thought it was one of those occasions where they were coincidentaly speaking in turn but on different calls.
It’s to provide a paper trail. But, if it’s general chit-chat, just look up and engage with her verbally. They might think you are busy and don’t want to interrupt, or don’t deal it a high priority.
Apart from the guy I sit next to I rarely have conversations with people in the office. Mostly as they don't work on the same projects as me so there's no business need to (yes I do say "Hi" :p ) and when we are working on the same projects (a lot of them are PMs) I need a paper trail (I might get asked for an effort estimate for a project then 3 months later get told the project's been approved and to crack on, I often can't even remember what the project was about let alone what fantasy effort figure I gave).
The 'paper trailers' have a point. But only to a degree.
An element of intelligence and common sense is required to delineate a rational and sensible position for when this is required and has a place. And a trust culture in the workplace. Unfortunately there are too many in the general population who are total dribblers, unable to discern where that is and who then fill the virtual atmosphere with white noise. To everyone's detriment. The world still kept turning in the pre-email era. We all just had to exercise a modicum of filtering.
This doesn't always fit - but I find most people are either people people or process people. People people tend to be better at making decisions and thinking on their feet. Process people like to do things by the book, keep good records - email or otherwise and cite the regulations chapter and verse. You need a mix of both types.
As other have suggested it could be about priority - a conversation interrupts whatever it is you are doing. Unless something is urgent, they might be better off with an email and it can sit in your inbox until you have finished what you are currently doing and check emails.
Email is great for creating lists and formalising things. It allows the author to draft and redraft what it being said, being carefully adjusted for tone and .
Maybe your manager hates face-to-face conversations. (I hate phone calls...)
Maybe her feet hurt.
Maybe you smell. 😉
One place I worked at used ICQ as an intermediate - not as high priority to deserve a meeting but not so formal as to need an email. It was mostly used for MTB chit chat.
Oh and also 75% of the people where I work wear earphones at their desk, you never know if you're interrupting them listening to music (fine) or interrupting them whilst they're on a phone call (it far from obvious for conference calls where they might only speak occasionally). So emailing can be less awkward :p