Ignoring E-mails

D3K · 17 Apr 2016 at 21:45

What are your views on the practice of ignoring e-mails from colleagues to avoid giving a negative response, when it is clear your reply is expected?

I seem to have (slowly) learned about this the hard way: that there are quite a lot of people who will ignore you rather than reply negatively. My previous boss used to do it, but I just assumed that was his style. In my new position, there are many people doing it. One person I kept poking on a subject finally called me on Friday and we had words. Not the good ones.

When I worked in TEFL overseas, the business English curricula across all of the places that I worked taught students on what to expect from a wide range of countries with an emphasis on the UK in particular. Not once did I come across this as something to expect in the workplace.

I guess I will have to deal with it, but I personally think it is bad form.

FrenchTart · 17 Apr 2016 at 21:47

If I get ignored I simply reply to them again, copying in people they can't ignore, and give them a few options. It may be obvious which one they're going to pick but if it's something that matters they have to reply and have to confirm whatever decision they're trying to avoid.

D3K · 17 Apr 2016 at 21:49

Yes it got to that stage, hence his calling me to avoid there being any evidence of his terrible attitude.

FrenchTart · 17 Apr 2016 at 21:52

Perhaps I'm an arse but if someone did that I'd then reply again saying "Thanks for your call. Just to confirm I've understood correctly, you stated that we'd do XXX. If I've misunderstood please let me know by XXX."

I have no patience for people trying to create plausible deniability.

D3K · 17 Apr 2016 at 22:05

I would normally do that but I'm keen not to rattle too many cages while in my probationary period so I'll take advice from my boss before taking this particular issue any further.

One of the other people ignoring me is a director, so he can ignore all he wants and I'll just have to suck it up.

dowie · 17 Apr 2016 at 22:18

ignoring so as not to give a negative reply sounds a bit weird, if someone is going to simply say no or tell you to do one then why not just say it right off the bat

I'll generally not ignore completely per say but some e-mails where the person might be a pain or is chasing something that isn't particularly important and isn't relevant to what I'm actually working on but is potentially going to be time consuming to help out then I'll certainly delay replying to. I think the only time I completely ignored someone was some account management person who I'd tried to help with a particular issue(something she was supposed to be dealing with) and then spent a decent amount of time given very clear further instructions... she then pretty much ignored the e-mail and rather than follow the instructions and fetch the information I needed dropped in a one line reply telling me to call her client and I'll be able to get access to go and fetch all the data... (for something that I wasn't working on). so I did ignore her. I think she then tried phoning my internal phone a few times and copying in her account director boss (who didn't seem that bothered). Tis one thing to ask for help tis another to not be arsed to do anything yourself in order to make things easier for the person offering to help you.

Dis86 · 17 Apr 2016 at 22:24

FrenchTart said:
Perhaps I'm an arse but if someone did that I'd then reply again saying "Thanks for your call. Just to confirm I've understood correctly, you stated that we'd do XXX. If I've misunderstood please let me know by XXX."

I have no patience for people trying to create plausible deniability.

I do exactly the same.

OspreyO · 17 Apr 2016 at 23:43

I do the same. Fire and forget emails I call them.

People not replying is normal for a good many people where I work. If they don't reply I assume its not important. Once I've sent the email I have a record, I'm covered. I'll only chase if its an urgent priority. I tend to avoid working with people who won't reply unless I absolutely have to. They tend to be inefficient people in general.

There's worse email habits. Some people have a habit of CC'ing everyone on the planet with any email you send them. As then if any issue arises, its a shared blame. Its rife in some places.

Another is editing the previous emails attached, so change the context of the current email, to leave things, out or edit them. That can be tricky to spot, unless you spot that something just isn't right.

Then some combine the two, edit old emails, then CC a bunch of people with the doctored emails. Nice.

MissChief · 18 Apr 2016 at 02:18

If you need a response and think you won't get one, CC their boss. Easy.

Bad habits? When an email gets sent by someone to all 330 odd people in the office for something not really that important and half of the people replying seem completely oblivious of the difference between 'Reply' and 'reply to all'.

Nitefly · 18 Apr 2016 at 08:25

Are you sure they aren't ignoring you because they are mad busy?

Mark M · 18 Apr 2016 at 09:05

FrenchTart said:
Perhaps I'm an arse but if someone did that I'd then reply again saying "Thanks for your call. Just to confirm I've understood correctly, you stated that we'd do XXX. If I've misunderstood please let me know by XXX."

I have no patience for people trying to create plausible deniability.

You 100% have to do this. Ive noticed that there seems to be a load more people out there now who will completely hang you out to dry, walk all over you and use you at every opportunity possible. If you dont do as FT suggests then the other party in question will lie to your face about it. Ive learnt the hard way so everything, even the smallest detail gets recorded via email.

tom_e · 18 Apr 2016 at 09:16

MissChief said:
If you need a response and think you won't get one, CC their boss. Easy.

This, if someone else's foot dragging is slowing me down I'll CC my boss in as well.

Although I generally avoid CC in the whole plefora of managers and directors I can think of straight off the bat unlike some people.

GAM8LE · 18 Apr 2016 at 09:19

FrenchTart said:
Perhaps I'm an arse but if someone did that I'd then reply again saying "Thanks for your call. Just to confirm I've understood correctly, you stated that we'd do XXX. If I've misunderstood please let me know by XXX."

I have no patience for people trying to create plausible deniability.

Absolutely spot on!

SMN · 18 Apr 2016 at 12:31

I ignore emails all of the time, if they dont explicitly ask something. People who say 'We have a problem in this X, and we need do something about it'. Thats great. Thanks for letting me know

OspreyO · 18 Apr 2016 at 12:34

SMN said:
I ignore emails all of the time, if they dont explicitly ask something. People who say 'We have a problem in this X, and we need do something about it'. Thats great. Thanks for letting me know

Email... You won the xmas raffle.

Bet you'll reply to that, even though its not a question

SMN · 18 Apr 2016 at 12:44

OspreyO said:
Email... You won the xmas raffle.

Bet you'll reply to that, even though its not a question

Ah sweet paradox.. although this is a forum

Yeah, my rules filter is about 200 deep. I am one of those inbox zero people, so keeping my unread emails to null is what keeps me on the correct side of insanity - hence why pointless emails and constant 'cc's drives me potty.

dowie · 18 Apr 2016 at 14:53

SMN said:
I ignore emails all of the time, if they dont explicitly ask something. People who say 'We have a problem in this X, and we need do something about it'. Thats great. Thanks for letting me know

I don't ignore those people but I do tend to reply with a request for them to fetch a bunch of things if they want me to help... this at least stops them from being lazy e-mail forwarders, gets some clearer initial analysis done(which they should have done to begin with) and gives a delay where I can schedule some time to put aside to potentially deal with it if that is likely going to be needed. Obviously urgent things are an exception to this but then again urgent stuff tends to involve phone-calls and/or people dashing over to your desk rather than e-mails.

The only person I've ever decided to completely ignore is one US based account manager who was a full on 'professional female' type... just forwarded e-mails and if any further questions needed to be answered or more detailed information obtained from the client's system she'd either ignore half of the requests or start picking on support bods(often unfamiliar with the issue) to answer my questions for her, I gave up when she wouldn't even attempt to get the required information/answer questions. It would turn into a game of e-mail tennis with still no clear description of the issue but her CC'ing senior management etc...

Craig321 · 18 Apr 2016 at 14:55

People I deal with do it all the time to avoid giving a negative response. It's to their detriment to ignore... I always cover myself.

Akagi · 18 Apr 2016 at 14:59

FrenchTart said:
If I get ignored I simply reply to them again, copying in people they can't ignore, and give them a few options. It may be obvious which one they're going to pick but if it's something that matters they have to reply and have to confirm whatever decision they're trying to avoid.

This is how it almost always has to happen where I work... On several occasions I have had to copy in managers to get things noticed, and then had to copy in company directors to get the managers to do something about the other people who aren't doing anything...

Today I had a chat with the CEO about the directors not doing anything about the managers not doing anything about the people who weren't doing anything... Seriously!

Akagi · 18 Apr 2016 at 15:20

*dupe*