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The Curse Of Confusing Emails
from the learn-to-write-clearly! dept
Apparently the new scourge of the workplace is difficult to decipher emails. A recent survey suggests that 40% people end up wasting half an hour to three hours a day trying to understand "inefficiently" written emails. It makes you wonder what's wrong with replying and asking for clarification -- but maybe that's included in the time wasting aspect of it all. In the meantime, this seems like a worthy subject for our own totally unscientific (and somewhat silly) poll. So, have at it: How Much Time Do You Waste With Confusing Emails? And, if you need help in writing emails more "efficiently," perhaps you should talk to some of those kids who are text messaging all the time. After all, their writing skills have apparently improved.
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No Subject Given
I try to write my emails so that they are as confusing as possible.
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Re: No Subject Given
ha ha thats funny
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That's awesome. Job security.
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Ugh. That is one poorly written blog entry at ZDNet. First, the title is incorrect. It should be 40% not 65%. Second, it's not clear if the 40% represents a percentage of the 65% of respondents that spend from 1 to 3 hours per day reading and writing emails or if it is 40% of all respondents. I would expect this kind of 'quality' at digg.com
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Um, I'm sorry, can you clarify?
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INTERBAS
Re: No Subject Given by twiny on Nov 1st, 2005 @ 8:29am
Um, I'm sorry, can you clarify?The Curse Of Confusing Emails
from the leaThe Curse Of Confusing Emails
from the learn-to-write-clearly! dept
Apparently the new scourge of the workplace is difficult to decipher emails. A recent survey suggests that 40% people end up wasting half an hour to three hours a day trying to understand "inefficiently" written emails. It makes you wonder what's wrong with replying and asking for clarification -- but maybe that's included in the time wasting aspect of it all. In the meantime, this seems like a worthy subject for our own totally unscientific (and somewhat silly) poll. So, have at it: How Much Time Do You Waste With Confusing Emails? And, if you need help in writing emails more "efficiently," perhaps you should talk to some of those kids who are text messaging all the time. After all, their writing skills have apparently improved.
9 Comments | Leave a Comment..
rn-to-write-clearly! dept
Apparently the new scourge of the workplace is difficult to decipher emails. A recent survey suggests that 40% people end up wasting half an hour to three hours a day trying to understand "inefficiently" written emails. It makes you wonder what's wrong with replying and asking for clarification -- but maybe that's included in the time wasting aspect of it all. In the meantime, this seems like a worthy subject for our own totally unscientific (and somewhat silly) poll. So, have at it: How Much Time Do You Waste With Confusing Emails? And, if you need help in writing emails more "efficiently," perhaps you should talk to some of those kids who are text messaging all the time. After all, their writing skills have apparently improved.
9 Comments | Leave a Comment..
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Writing sensible email messages
Writing sensible email messages from 43 Signals.
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No Subject Given
"Here are the full related emails from you, which don't have history in them of
shutdown of system and you sent below that you are working on Apache so
that's why this email used"
Actual email I got.
Perhaps it's because a lot of us work with Indians that cannot write a proper email to begin with. Like it or not, the language barrier does exist and sometimes it can impede progress.
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wasted time on email
my way is tell everyone "Make it simple stupid"
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The most confusing part is when people pluralize the word 'email', like it's a new word to blindly pluralize.
So I saw some deers on the roads while I was out getting the mails ...
Really, any confusion depends on similarly bad grammar. I find myself asking if the writer was asking a statement or if he was stating a question, but that's usually the most confusing part.
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