No Stupid Questions

Cause frankly, your email is the 235th most important thing on my desk today.

I will put 3 simple 1 sentence questions in a numbered list and get a single answer back.

Idgaf any more I just copy/paste the same 3 questions and send it back.

Ah, one of my top complaints about digital communication. Doesn’t matter if it’s SMS or email, someone plainly doesn’t read the entirety of what you wrote even if it’s relatively short. Irritatingly sometimes taking another two follow-ups regarding the exact same subject or question ending up with both parties likely getting frustrated.

It annoys the heck out of me too. Generally what I do is reply with the remaining questions they haven't answered; sometimes they get the message and answer all of them, sometimes we go round and round until I have all the answers I need.

I work in IT so for the most part, if I have 5 questions, that's because there are 5 things I need to know. And I need to know because they want me to solve their problem, so if they want to do this one question at a time that's fine, but if I start out going one at a time I get complained at for being too slow.

I've also tried everything I can think of short of being explicitly rude in my messages. Numbering them doesn't work. Bullet-points don't work. One question per paragraph doesn't work. Asking them explicitly to answer all questions doesn't work (how did these people ever pass an exam?).

(And yes I'm aware I haven't answered all your questions (-: )

You can mitigate most of it by having extremely clear emails that are fast to read, with clearly numbered questions.

Yes

Step 1. Stop emailing my boss.

Step 2. Recognize that if you're thorough and verbose, people's eyes will glaze over and they won't actually read what you send. Conversely, if you're concise and direct, people will complain that you're aloof and not sharing information.

Step 3. Resign yourself to things only getting worse as you get older.

For me? Usually it’s because answering the first question on the list took a lot of time, research, or mental energy and I had forgotten there were other questions by the time I finally had the answer written down. Sense of accomplishment, hit send.

People are kind of stupid and lazy, and if there's no immediate benefit for doing something or punishment for skipping it, they'll do whatever's easiest. We're all like this to some degree, in some contexts or other.

It is a little funny to me that some people just don't have professional standards. I would make a good faith effort to respond completely to a work email because that's the job. But I don't think that's it for a lot of people.

There's a lot of ADHD and friends in the world, and a lot of it is untreated. They're not skipping questions out of malice. They're probably trying their best. Still failing, but trying. That counts for something.

A lot of people also don't read well. They won't likely show up on a texty medium like this, but they're out there. It may be uncomfortable and embarrassing for them to try to read your email, especially if the level of diction is high and the vocabulary extensive. Most people are emotionally kind of fragile, and won't put up with that shame for very long. I think that's why a lot of people want to hop on a call or have a meeting when it could've just been an email. They can talk fine, but communicating in written words is harder.

The human brain processes information by chunking - bundling up information into chunks to remember it. It's like a .zip file or compression on an image. That process is a bit lossy. If you've ever tried to write a technical document or a rules-set for a game, and had a user go through the document undirected, you'll see it in action.

The more complicated, technical, or tedious the instructions are, the more likely loss or misinterpretation will occur. A friend of mine says that writing a technical document is like programming a computer that skips every 7th line.

As a person who has written many of these, I've found ways to counteract / ameliorate their problems:

• the use of paragraphing important points that you want feedback on
• When sending to multiple people, but wanting feedback from a specific person, I bold, underline, and color their name next to their action item, so they know it's for them
• Using checklists or bullet points
• explaining things through multiple avenues, like with visual images and with text simultaneously

I hope this helps!

Bad reading comprehension

The person that inspired this message will never change. You have to treat them as if you were a lawyer, and they are a hostile witness. Ask them one question, then follow up with another, until you have your answers. Problem is, they will probably catch on pretty quick and leave you unanswered.

It's a mixture of stupidity and laziness.

I recently emailed my professor about a question on a take home test. I asked for clarification because the wording was weird. I also asked how I should format the answer, and where in the textbook I can find info relating to it. His email back to me just said "the answer is on page 75". It was not.

If you've got questions, put them in bullet points.

I'm not scanning a wall of text to find everything.

In email, I always make my questions the last thing right before my signature as a call to action. I think many people skip reading the entire email, but may read the line above the signature if they see a question mark. You always want the last thing they read to be the idea they have to act on THIS part.

• Phrase your questions unambiguously
• Bonus points for phrasing them with a binary response: "Do you want A or B?" or "Do you approve that we can move forward with the plan as stated here?"
• Only ask the questions you REALLY need an answer to. Every next question risks losing a answer you really need.
• Make self liquidating statements instead of questions "If you want a different path let me know. Unless I from you by the next Tuesday, I'm moving forward with what I described in this email"

If you write open ended or ambiguous questions you risk your audience having to take time to think about a response and they get distracted. Risky questions in this area are: "So what do you want to do here?" or "What do you think?"

Sounds like your emails are too long. Trim it to the minimum amount of words to get your point across and be professional, and put all questions in a numbered list.