Do YOU Answer Your EMAIL?

The most responsive human I have ever known to email is my friend Gary, a former research administrator at UH Manoa. Day or night, 24/7, if you emailed Gary, he responded.  He responded if you were the president of the University or president of the USA.  He responded if you were a student or a janitor.  No matter who you are/were, he responded with alacrity.  

Responding to email is an act of courtesy, an act of kindness, an act of respect for the individual who took the time to write something they consider important.  Something they would like your answer on, or advice or perspective or sending you just for information. 

I have another friend and colleague.  This friend sends me email that I respond to as quickly as the keystrokes take to register –OK, a little exaggeration here never hurts.  But it is a one way relationship. If I initiate the email, it’s 50/50 he/she will ever respond.  Of course, if my email informed him/her that I was leaving them one million in my will, they would respond. Otherwise, tough luck MF! Notice here I do not reveal the identity of the ugly stingy email responder, unlike the reverence I show to the world’s best email responding role model. Human nature I guess…..

More and more and more and more, other friends and colleagues are doing this to me. It’s like an epidemic of ugly stingy unresponsive one way emailers USUWOWE aka - I don’t care about you enough to return your email – IDCRYE. They send me email, I respond.  I send them email; they are nowhere to be found.  Are they really that busy - maybe? Are my emails too complex or insignificant for them to respond to? I hope not.

Recently, I have been getting email queries that request a response without enough information to understand the context of the question; a specific medical question; a question about another faculty member; a question about an upcoming event.  The email query never reveals the reason for the question.  I am left hanging helplessly with lingering questions as I compose the response to the query. Hey, I’m not the Encyclopedia Britannica and I cannot read minds.  At least feed me some bait if you want to pull me out of the water.

This all drives me MAD. But maybe there is another side to this story. Indeed, it may not be so great to be in Gary’s shoes, burdened by the gnawing unsettling undercurrent of a torrent of new email relentlessly filling his email inbox out of control like a broken water main.  There should be a time when you turn your email off, turn off your brain, and fill your inbox with something other than syntax from cyberspace. And the quicker you answer your email, the quicker the respondent responds, the more the email floods to encompass your entire being as a self-inflicted, self-perpetuating, and self-consuming curse. 

Hummmm, maybe those USUWOWE folks are the wise ones…..  After all, would you rather be valued by everyone in your circle as  responsive to email at a cost of your sanity?  Hey, don't email me any comments or questions.  Chances are only 50/50 that you will get any response!