This Business and Moment...

[HangTime]

I sent an email the other day outlining a more official proposal for a piece of work to be done, as requested by both my boss and other teams.
I almost immediately excuse the length of the email, and outline that it is as concise as possible and that further detail can be provided on request, or discussed at meeting.
It's about 900 words if I pasted into Microsoft Word, and 1-2 sides of A4, with a fair bit of spacing. GCSE students have to cope with more in exams. This discusses a change, why it is needed, the problem it fixes, background information and future changes to make things better long term.

The first response to the email from the team that are meant to be reviewing the request, is someone completely missing the point. Like, I am concerned to be having to deal with someone that dumb.

The second response from my boss to me complains of the email being quite lengthy, so is unsure we will be successful.

What annoys me the most, is a meeting will be called to discuss this. I will literally repeat everything that is there in the email. Again.

If I had taken the approach to keep the email to a paragraph, it would have been laughed off passively aggressively referring to a distinct "lack of info".

Can't win. Why are people incapable of reading today?

I'm with you, I love getting long emails with lots of detail but I have colleagues that don't. I'm quick to tell the people sending long emails that get feedback about it that I'm happy to keep receiving them.
It's really frustrating getting an email that's missing vital information and means I need to contact them back to request further clarity. It takes way, way more time to do ping-pong or arrange phone calls etc than just including the full picture in the first place.

I have had feedback in the past that my emails can be too verbose, but then I've also had feedback that my written comms are excellent and lay things out clearly. Plus the ABSOLUTE WORST is when you draft an important email, get told to be more concise and then questions come back about the stuff you just bloody truncated! You can't win really. And If I'm emailing someone about a topic that might be new to them, the first couple of lines is going to get used up on explaining who I am and setting the context anyway, before we even get to the actual question / actions at hand.

What I try to do when I know I'm sending a long mail is include a TL;DR / exec summary. Luckily the CxO I sit under is pretty detail-oriented and doesn't mind getting a proper explanation, but I'm conscious some people zone out if they receive more than a couple of paragraphs.

 

[jaybee]

It takes way, way more time to do ping-pong or arrange phone calls etc than just including the full picture in the first place.

Yeah. Agreed. The thing is, there are certain types (ahem managers, PMs) that revel in this toing and throwing and making a mountain out of a molehill. They love a meeting to discuss anything. You know why. It's so they can justify getting paid. These people literally have calendars fully booked every day thinking the business wouldn't function without them due to the amount they contribute. Reality: it would function better without them entirely.

 

[ivrytwr3]

What I try to do when I know I'm sending a long mail is include a TL;DR / exec summary. Luckily the CxO I sit under is pretty detail-oriented and doesn't mind getting a proper explanation, but I'm conscious some people zone out if they receive more than a couple of paragraphs.

BLUF - Bottom Line Up Front ie Exec Summary. If they are interested, relevant to them, then they will read the finer details in the remainder of the email.

My boss explained this to me many years ago, "IT3, i get hundreds of emails per day, i do not have the time to read reams of text and to finally understand what you are telling me when i get to the final sentence. Tell me what i need to know in the opening paragraph".

BLUF'd ever since.

 

[dirtychinchilla]

100%. Someone who used to work with us always said, if I want your MD to read our email, I put golf in the subject.

You can also match your response to the type of emails that they send you as that's probably the style of communication that they like.

 

[NickK]

The company I joined in Jan feels like it's going down the pan - we acquired some more companies a few months back and it was all good and full of optimism... But since then it's been one problem after another, redundancies, and general **** that has soured everyone's mood.

The big thing is the change in organisation structure - we now have a business systems team run by someone with no experience in any of the system nor project management. All our integration and transformation projects are going through them without any formal processes or structures.

We're reimplementing Salesforce, a new billing engine and integrating it all (and 6 new entities) into NetSuite. There's no project plans, no project management, stakeholders aren't involved. CFO is only interested in getting to the next sale of the company to another PE firm.

We migrated onto a new MS tenant this week and I now have two profiles in everything (4 in teams) as SSOs and SharePoint weren't migrated yet.

I had a call today with a NetSuite consultant just to get some external resource to help with the NetSuite piece and hopefully sit in on the other projects which I haven't been invited to (I'm the internal NetSuite admin) but I'll probably get in trouble for doing that. Beyond caring at this point.

Reading some of the posts further up this page about moving to the cloud, bureaucracy, it feels like we're heading that way. Things I can fix myself in minutes will take weeks.

At least I'm off next week and can forget about it for a while.

The key thing with “cloud” is any service or feature is fully automated.
It may cost 3M to create the platform but for an org it’s worth it.

For smaller companies where there’s no technology direction and the resulting free-for-all integrations result in no automation then all you’re doing is reinventing your doomed problems in the cloud and paying someone for the privilege. It really sounds like nobody knows what they’re doing.

 

[NickK]

BLUF - Bottom Line Up Front ie Exec Summary. If they are interested, relevant to them, then they will read the finer details in the remainder of the email.

My boss explained this to me many years ago, "IT3, i get hundreds of emails per day, i do not have the time to read reams of text and to finally understand what you are telling me when i get to the final sentence. Tell me what i need to know in the opening paragraph".

BLUF'd ever since.

Typically an exec email is an ask. The exec needs to quickly understand what is being asked of them. It needs to be framed in their world/mindset (fastest understanding). Depending on seniority it may also follow a set process with trusted advisors that you need to warm up first and plan that interaction.

A key skill is transitioning from shotgun noise to “this is your problem, this is how I’d like to solve it (plan & resolved state), my ask of you is X.”
Taking ownership and driving to solve. If there’s processes then align with those and get is sorted.

I tend to be quite formally structured- to the point of highlighting each section.

 

[ivrytwr3]

Typically an exec email is an ask. The exec needs to quickly understand what is being asked of them. It needs to be framed in their world/mindset (fastest understanding). Depending on seniority it may also follow a set process with trusted advisors that you need to warm up first and plan that interaction.

A key skill is transitioning from shotgun noise to “this is your problem, this is how I’d like to solve it (plan & resolved state), my ask of you is X.”
Taking ownership and driving to solve. If there’s processes then align with those and get is sorted.

I tend to be quite formally structured- to the point of highlighting each section.

Exactly that. When i'm bringing a problem/issue, i also provide 2 or 3 CoA's.

CoA1: do this and it will resolve the issue at a cost of x £'s and/or workforce hours.
CoA2: other option.
CoA3: do nothing and accept the risk!

Nothing worse than someone bringing an issue without their thoughts on a solution. You're the expert in your area, how do YOU propose we fix this?!

 

[-westy-]

Yep, I agree.

I've gone back to HR with a couple of questions for clarity however - firstly asking why line managers need to be copied in on communications, and how long this must be done for - all at the advice of ACAS. Don't intend on making more fuss than that - just seek some clarity and keep my head down.

Like you said, she'll get bored eventually, and potentially find herself in trouble.

So - update to this.

Outcome of the investigation - not upheld. Acknowledged that I could have done some things better - I'm already attending a training course to cover elements of that, so no further action. My colleague still wants to copy managers into communications which I felt was unnecessary, however I'll play the game - we have little to no interactions as it stands, so little effort required on my part - it's only until the end of the month.

She seems unhappy that the grievance wasn't upheld, but that's her issue - I'll just crack on. I've had the week off anyway, enjoyed some nice weather and golf, so back to work this week

 

[HangTime]

Not sure if it's just seasonal September surge after the summer break but my 'radar' senses the job market is picking up slightly of late after about two years in the duldrums. Basically I've found previously that what I see on Linked In, job postings, unsolicited approached etc are a pretty good barometer of what's happening and then a while after that the general consensus conforms to that. And I've definitely seen movement there of late. That said, ONS stats suggest a decline in vacancies last quarter.

 

[Rroff]

Not sure if it's just seasonal September surge after the summer break but my 'radar' senses the job market is picking up slightly of late after about two years in the duldrums. Basically I've found previously that what I see on Linked In, job postings, unsolicited approached etc are a pretty good barometer of what's happening and then a while after that the general consensus conforms to that. And I've definitely seen movement there of late. That said, ONS stats suggest a decline in vacancies last quarter.

Probably because everyone seems to be quitting their jobs of late or at least seems that way to me.

Dunno if it is just me but everyone seems more burned out and done with working than usual lately - loads of people have packed in work until after Christmas or indefinitely, loads talking about quitting, a fair few playing up the long term sick game, a few have rage quit their job or asked to step down from management roles to part time, etc. etc. and there seems to be a huge rise in people "slow quitting".

I know 2 people who've just walked out of jobs this week - one of them is going to find a beach somewhere until their money runs out, the other just walked out of a store manager job.

 

[LuckyBenski]

Dunno if it is just me but everyone seems more burned out and done with working than usual lately - loads of people have packed in work until after Christmas or indefinitely, loads talking about quitting, a fair few playing up the long term sick game, a few have rage quit their job or asked to step down from management roles to part time, etc. etc. and there seems to be a huge rise in people "slow quitting".

Yup. I finally walked out start of June after 2 years of being overloaded. About 6 weeks off, then phased return starting with one short day a week. I'm up to 3.5-4 days a week and about to formally agree that. But then that is a 20% pay cut, and I'm already finding myself too stretched again. So why give a **** about trying so hard, frankly. I show up, I do what I can, I go home when I run out of steam. I end up working too many hours for 3 days and having to take the 4th day off leaving my team to fend for themselves. And honestly I'm tempted to just walk away and spend a few months eating into my savings. Just no desire at all to give myself to work any more.

 

[HangTime]

Take this with a pinch of salt but I have a personal view that if you are overloaded then reducing hours is risky because you might be trying to do say 90% of the normal workload in 80% of the time, which makes you feel even more stretched and/or you end up working extra hours for free anyway. It depends on the type of work you do, whether your work is just a nebulous sprawl of things that need doing (a lot of tech jobs can be) that will never run out and always bleeds across days and weeks, or something more discrete where you do a job, clock off and then reset for the next day (like being a Barista). Modern office jobs where everyone else is working 5 days a week, if you take a day off do you come back in to work with no more work to do than when you walked out the door? Not often, the world doesn't stop just because you aren't working so you come back to a bunch of emails / IMs / work items / whatever generated while you weren't working. In simple terms, does working less hours just mean you have a bigger backlog of stuff to do or are there other people that are committed to picking up the slack?

5 years ago I got fed up with the relentless nature of a job and quit without another one to go to, had a few months off doing some certifications and it's worked out ok although I might have "got lucky" in the sense that the job market was surprisingly healthy considering covid.

 

[LuckyBenski]

Take this with a pinch of salt but I have a personal view that if you are overloaded then reducing hours is risky because you might be trying to do say 90% of the normal workload in 80% of the time, which makes you feel even more stretched and/or you end up working extra hours for free anyway. It depends on the type of work you do, whether your work is just a nebulous sprawl of things that need doing (a lot of tech jobs can be) that will never run out and always bleeds across days and weeks, or something more discrete where you do a job, clock off and then reset for the next day (like being a Barista). Modern office jobs where everyone else is working 5 days a week, if you take a day off do you come back in to work with no more work to do than when you walked out the door? Not often, the world doesn't stop just because you aren't working so you come back to a bunch of emails / IMs / work items / whatever generated while you weren't working. In simple terms, does working less hours just mean you have a bigger backlog of stuff to do or are there other people that are committed to picking up the slack?

5 years ago I got fed up with the relentless nature of a job and quit without another one to go to, had a few months off doing some certifications and it's worked out ok although I might have "got lucky" in the sense that the job market was surprisingly healthy considering covid.

You are spot on with every word TBH. Which is why I tried to argue for an hours reduction at same pay, or at least 90% pay for 80% hours. Or 80% pay for 70% hours would be good too. Aside from just avoiding the subject for 2.5 years and kicking it down the road, my company also refuses to adjust pay and hours at the same time. It'd be an hours shift and then me reopening the conversation about pay rates. I'm getting quite ****ed off just thinking about it again TBH.

 

[HangTime]

Some jobs just end up being unsustainable without a fundamental change in the way the org is setup, which often happens but too late (the job I mentioned leaving, they have effectively spread across 3 different roles now and inserted more senior leaders). Reducing the hours to 80% in a job where you were already overloaded (lets say 120% capacity), unless they've changed something else like handing off some your responsibilities, seems like a recipe for disaster.

I now have a job in the same industry, same sort of specialism but with at most a third of the responsibility I used to have and about 50% more money, I have busy days but broadly speaking I can get done what I need to do working 35hrs a week. Arguably my old employer was a better employer, they had better processes in place etc but the role I had was designed for when the scale was a lot smaller.

 

[Rroff]

Something which has been on my mind a bit recently at work (as I spend quite a bit of time covering a management position but management isn't something which comes naturally to me) - teachable moments - it is so easy to do things for people or fix issues rather than think to use the opportunity to show someone how to do it. Example today we had a manager in from another part of the business and they were trying to do something a very long winded way, so I jumped in and said there is a quicker way to do it and generated the report for them, on the spot my thinking was they seemed like a switched on manager and as they touched on being from another part of the business it wasn't a process that they did very often so had forgotten how to do it the way I had, but then afterwards I thought I could have showed them the steps I took and/or taken them through it - in their case probably wasn't necessary but for someone else it could be useful to build up their skill set.

 

[HangTime]

Teach a man to fish and all that, or they will treat you as a fishmonger (which is fine if that's what you want)

 

[Dr House]

New business update

We’re now very close to having our MVP ready and I’m aiming to be at market within the next two weeks.

The idea first came together in February this year, and by the first week of May I had built a small team.

The investment has been higher than expected, and we’ll likely cross into six figures before seeing meaningful revenue so cash flow has been tight at home.

I also stepped into a new senior management role in Jan. Rather than trying to stretch myself too thin, I hire a capable team to take on much of the operational legwork. In truth, they’re doing a better job than I could alone, which allows me to focus on my day job while still driving the business forward.

Its exciting times.

 

[Crizzy]

Edit: ignore.

 

[OspreyO]

I'm with you, I love getting long emails with lots of detail but I have colleagues that don't. I'm quick to tell the people sending long emails that get feedback about it that I'm happy to keep receiving them.
It's really frustrating getting an email that's missing vital information and means I need to contact them back to request further clarity. It takes way, way more time to do ping-pong or arrange phone calls etc than just including the full picture in the first place.

I have had feedback in the past that my emails can be too verbose, but then I've also had feedback that my written comms are excellent and lay things out clearly. Plus the ABSOLUTE WORST is when you draft an important email, get told to be more concise and then questions come back about the stuff you just bloody truncated! You can't win really. And If I'm emailing someone about a topic that might be new to them, the first couple of lines is going to get used up on explaining who I am and setting the context anyway, before we even get to the actual question / actions at hand.

What I try to do when I know I'm sending a long mail is include a TL;DR / exec summary. Luckily the CxO I sit under is pretty detail-oriented and doesn't mind getting a proper explanation, but I'm conscious some people zone out if they receive more than a couple of paragraphs.

I think for some people will find fault no matter what you do. We've a senior manager that will look for documentation but not read it. Look for emails but not read them but complain they always too long and too short.

At this point my emails to some people are not sent with the expectation they will read them. Its send to create a paper trail. I have to refer back to something in paper trails quite often.

 

[Freefaller]

Finally came to the conclusion of this opportunity in SA (yes it's been on-going for nearly 10+ months!), on paper it looked good, but it took many many many months to get to the nitty gritty details of what they wanted, and basically it's going to be insane long days, not much holiday, and sweat me dry - although the pay would have been ridiculous (tax free too). I sound work shy don't I?

I since landed on my feet and have been working for a large tech/telco for nearly 10 months, and frankly whilst the pay is average compared to what I have been on in the past (having to tighten my belt quite a bit), the work life balance is very much on the life side, and the benefits I get are ridiculous (I basically pay nothing for broadband, mobile phones, lots of holiday time, flex working, etc...). I'm actually a lot happier than I was.

Although I'm keen for the adventure, I think the reality check of needing to work my arse off is now putting me off a little - 10 years ago, sure, but now, family time is so much more important to me. That said if a decent role appears in Europe (or elsewhere other than the USA) I'd love for my kids to experience a bit of expat life, but I think as much as I'd love to earn a shed load of money, I'm not driven enough as I thought I was, as we seem to be coping on 40% less than we were previously.

That said my role is not exactly pushing me at the moment, so I'm probably a little biased on the balance of work/life, I'm not under a lot of pressure, so I have to say it's nice not to have to worry too much and just crack on with what I've been given. I do worry though that in a year or so I may be chomping at the bit for a bit more of a challenge. That said I've already delivered a lot and already appreciated and well regarded which is nice.

I don't even think I'm up to the task of starting a side hustle either, all I want to do when I get home is chill out with my family / do some exercise / relax / turn my brain off (not that there's much to turn off these days...).

I sound quite apathetic don't I?!