RantWoman is not sure which members
of the Still Didn't Get the Memo Committee... are going to show up, but the
committee includes a particularly large membership with a number of different
qualifications:
--Generic Customer Service Friend
--Veteran Tech Support "Users
always Lie; They don't know they lie; they don't mean to lie but they Lie. Now
what was that symptom again?" Friend.
--Mental Health Triage Friend
--Out of Control Spiritual
Accompaniment Friend
--Data Nerd / What is trending over
time Friend
--Lots of ways to agree about
measures to make email manageable but not sending is not an option Friend.
--Language Nerd and Literature
Scholar Friend
--Magical Realism So what if the
timelines are non-linear Friend
--You're always asleep when I'm
awake Friend
--You barely know me and I barely
know you but I am supposed to know you are a resource Friend
--It takes days and days of phone
tag to reach you Friend
--I actually think sort of slowly
and LIKE being able to use my search engine to think over bits of the
conversation again Friend
--If you don't understand something,
have you considered asking for clarification? Friend
--If you don't understand something,
who might you refer the problem to Friend?
--Look, really sorry the message is
not coming in palatable form but have you considered that it might be your job
either to figure it out or to connect the sender withsomeone who can Friend
--I talk about Service Dogs all the
time. You think I don't know when to quit aboutservice DOGS. How about we talk
about service CHICKENS? Friend
--Really sorry God is not showing up
on your schedule Friend.
--You say you dislike email but you
actually do much better by email sometimesFriend.
--Sometimes I get so upset I cannot
talk Friend.
--You like to talk; I need to send
email Friend
--Have you considered the
possibility that what I am talking about applies to your day job too Friend.
RantWoman acknowledges that The
Still Didn't Get the Memo Committee... could perhaps get things off on better
footing by losing references to the "Oops Well" part of the Care and
Counsel Committee moniker. RantWoman acknowledges this, but she showed up warts
and all and the worship sharing needs to happen regardless.
Plus, RantWoman recently stumbled
across the most interesting reference to the word "oversight" not in
sense overburdened with the historical weight of enslavement but in a more
egalitarian, shared oversight "we all take care of each other" sense.
RantWoman WISHES she could remember which blog roll item she saw this in.
RantWoman also would not mind some umbra of a penumbra of a sense that anyone
else on Care and Counsel committee cares about RantWoman's inquiry. RantWoman
is aware of needing to hold someone in theLight about medical matters as well.
Finally, if someone calling Dial a Tirade gets a busy signal about this topic,
oh well, there are plenty more tirades available. Please hold that point in the
Light along with the entire gigantic Still Didn't Get the Memo Committee on
Email Immoderation.
The following item appeared recently
in the monthly newsletter at RantWoman's Meeting.
CARE
AND COUNSEL
COMMITTEE
Thoughts
on UFM Email
While email is a
tremendous benefit to us, at times it can be a burden. Care and Counsel
Committee put together the following document to help fellow members. It is
common when in the midst of an email problem that we feel the need to help the
other person understand our position or make our points more firmly. In these
guidelines below, we suggest another tack: Whenever you feel the need to set
things right, instead wait calmly. If after due consideration it is still
necessary, briefly state your position once and move on.
Too Long: One
strategy for long emails is to skim them looking for questions or requests.
Limit your response to answering the questions or requests directly and
briefly. This will greatly reduce how much must be read and understood, but
still gives the other person a specific response. It represents a midpoint
between ignoring an email and taking on the burden of reading and responding to
an overly long missive.
Too Numerous: If you
are receiving too may emails from another member, consider taking a break and
filing for future perusal. Once your good feelings return you can limit the
amount of mail you read from the other person by setting aside a period of
time, say 10 minutes every Monday, to read and respond to their emails. Take
the rest and file them for later.
Confusing: If the
email is confusing and there are no requests or questions in it, then take
whatever understanding you may
have from it and move
on. If there are requests or questions in it that you cannot understand, simply
respond by letting the
writer know that.
Unkind: A good rule
of thumb is to read the first few sentences and ask yourself if you feel good
about reading further. If continuing to read is digging a hole of bad feelings,
then stop digging and move on. If you want, let the writer know that for you to
read the email, he or she will need to rewrite it with kindness.
Writing Email: The
other side of reading email is writing email. Kind, compassionate, and
thoughtful emails that come quickly to the point and put any requests in the
first sentence are the mostly (sic—RantWoman) likely to receive an audience.
Put aside longer or heated emails until you have the chance to revise them to a
paragraph or two of kind, compassionate, and thoughtful words.
Care and Counsel
Committee,
RantWoman, this is God. If the entire Still Didn't Get the Memo committee shows up and everyone talks one blop at a time, this one worship sharing is going to take millenia.
RantWoman , musing: ...could just forward to Care and Counsel one of Rant Brother's "I'ms still mentally ill and I still want firearms" emails, perhaps seasoned with more "I didn't tell you about my day" details than anyone wants to interact with about why it's IMPORTANT that people like RantBrother have places like the Friendly Neighborhood Center for Extreme Computing they can come to read and send email.
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