Submitted 2 weeks ago by andrewta@lemmy.world to nostupidquestions@lemmy.world
For example I’ll send an e-mail with 3 questions and will only get an answer to one of the questions. It’s worse when there are 2 yes/no questions with a question that is obviously not a yes/no question. Then I get a response of
Yes
back in the e-mail. So which question are they answering?
Mainly I’m asking all of you why do people insist on only answering 1 question out of an e-mail where there are multiple? Do people just not read? Are people that lazy? What is going on?
People hate to read. I write emails that try to cover all bases, because I can’t assume grown adults with advanced degrees know what’s going on. Sadly, they’ll not only not read it, but ask me to write less. Cutting the word count only leads to more confusion.
I’m so done with humanity sometimes.
I skip questions I don’t want to answer.
I was taught in college to only include a single question in one email unless you can’t get around it, because many people will only see the first one.
A lot of it is laziness but on the other hand my boss will often cc me on irrelevant emails, rather infamously sometimes forward an entire 20 responses email chain and tell you to read it, and send 8 paragraphs of questions with only one related to me. Frankly, it is overwhelming and a waste of time. I’ve started not responding and my productivity and mental health have improved.
Emails and texts need to be succinct. The higher up the chain you go the more true this is. The higher up the chain the more emails you get think 200+. If someone writes a paragraph you’re skimming for relevance generally.
Tldr; professional communication does not need length. Justify your questions separately from actual bulleted or numbered questions.
LOL, literally happened to me this morning, except my tormentor said “nope.”
I’ll harass him about it next week
Because you’re not paying me enough to pay attention to some random stranger, who emailed me
Do you…need a hug?
Mod removed before I could ask the same
If you’ve got questions, put them in bullet points.
I’m not scanning a wall of text to find everything.
Yep that’s fine push to production by Friday plz.
Even when we converse, we get across just one point at a time. You have to respect other people’s time and bandwidth (Okay, one or two points).
Yes because when are conversing in person you are conversing synchronously.
Only one person talks at a time and for the most part only one major subject idea question or problem is considered at a time. You talk about one thing and then you move along and talk about another thing.
This is not necessarily the case with written language. Where you have the benefit of talking about many things, changing subjects, and listing information out.
I’ve had my fair share of issues with not getting a complete response from e-mails. And so I changed the way I look at it. It’s not like it will take weeks to get all the information you need just because you didn’t get everything in one go.
Sometimes I’m busy man and trying to get something done
I make a point to ask one question.
First I ask it as the first line.
Then I elaborate on the question, what I mean, and why I’m asking in the body of the email.
Then the last a paragraph is restating the question in a different wording.
If you want to communicate clearly, then put effort into avoiding all ambiguity. If you have many questions, write many emails.
ADHD
I’m not sure. Maybe. Sometimes. I don’t know.
I can only tell you that my best results have come from replying with a neutral “Thank you”, then repeating the questions. I prefer it when they answer all my questions, but ultimately, if I want answers, I need to persist, and so I do.
The reader might think that your questions are overlaping, making adressing every question redundant. You might want clarity. The reader thinks you can figure it out based on their one answer. They don’t want to spend the time to confirm that which you already have the tools to get to yourself.
I number my questions. Helps for visual organization.
I usually number my questions, makes it more obvious
Hi based on you current post,
Why do people insist on answering only one question?
**Do people just not read? ** I would say most people have a lot to read, especially emails, I get dozens of them daily, archive a few thousands yearly. So I will gloss over, see if it’s addressed to me, of not I will probably wait until it becomes my problem to react/reply
Are people thatLazy? No people are busy, is this the same question as the first, out a request for alternatives causes to not reading?
What is going on? This question is vague, I see no point in replying, except maybe an opportunity to troll, or belittle you in this email that had now accumulated 30 people over 7 departments, and possibly one or two customer that were involved a week ago when the thread was about something entirely different.
In short, be specific, and format your message for readability. ;
Name whoever you expect to reply.
Split your questions.
Make sure they’re actual questions you need definitive answers to.
So I will gloss over, see if it’s addressed to me, of not I will probably wait until it becomes my problem to react/reply
Tbh I would rather have someone do this not realizing I’m expecting a reply from them than to reply only to some of it, because when the latter happens it’s usually like pulling teeth to get a response to the rest.
Gonna be honest, always write my mails structured with listed out questions that try to be specific yet not overloaded with info (hard to do, but possible. Mostly) and yet…
I get two answers to my three questions, with one answer even on topic, and the other being astrology divination of polar bear’s butthole position over png of africa.
Yeah I get that too.
Should the report be sent by mail or e-mail?
I run into this when texting my mother.
She’ll ask the same thing from 2 different perspectives (probably a better word but I can’t think of it atm). Both are technically the same question, but I can’t just say “yes” it “no”, because it answers the question from just one or the other, but indicates the opposite from the other question’s pov. Or sometimes needing to know between 2 possibilities she asks about one and then follows it up asking about the other.
For example, if we’ve recently met up to see my baby niblings (not even sure if this is a common use word, but I mean my nieces/nephews, aka her grandchildren), she could ask “Could you send me the photos you got in a text?” And then she would follow up with something like “Or did you already send them to my email?”
Now, I can’t say “yes” or “no”, I have to spell out what I did.
Other times it will be a question that she knows I picked one of the 2 options, but instead of just "did you do option A? Which would allow a quick answer “yes” which conveys that I did A, or I could say “no”, which would indicate I did option B. One word, clear defined message. But she’ll (sometimes during the process of replying- oof that’s frustrating), she’ll add “or did you do option B?” meaning I now have to spell out what I did.
I like efficient communication, and hate wasting a lot of words. And I’m any other circumstance, a 1 word answer works so well to convey the entire thing. But she almost always throws in a wrench by adding another question that conflicts with the ability to do that.
IMO, email isn’t for answering questions. Email is for documenting that the conversation occurred.
If they won’t answer the questions in email, ask them in a phone call, then send a “Per our conversation” email summarizing the answers they provided. Until they send a rebuttal, I am free to act as though my email was their answer.
rc__buggy@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
They don’t want to. Lazy, careless? Who knows. They zero in on one thing, type the one word answer and hit send.
Like others say, I bullet point multiple questions (usually with just a - , I’m not using a word processor to write emails) and if they don’t answer some I’ll quote the whole bullet list with whatever they answered and paste it back.