Great list! Here is another one from my experience:
If your procedure with a government agency or another bureaucratic organization is being delayed (e.g., you sent some forms, they are supposed to send some important document back or contact you, and they haven’t in the expected timeframe), call, don’t email.
There is a good chance that your email will get no reply. If it is replied, there is an excellent chance that the reply will be a useless “we are working on it, just wait”. The chances that it will actually help are tiny, especially if the organization you are dealing with is Vast and Impersonal.
You may have an ugh field about calling, because you will go through a Kafkaesque automated menu, or placed on hold and made to wait ages. But if you can get to a human, there is an excellent chance that they will be helpful and tell you exactly what is going on, or put you in contact with someone who does.
I completely agree. Also, when I send emails and don’t get replies, I tend to use that as an excuse to not do further work. It becomes easy to tell myself: “Well I can’t do anything until they reply to my email.”. This is a huge failure mode, as I’m the one who is losing when the work is not done. As a good rule of thumb, if you haven’t gotten a reply in 2 days, you are never going to get a reply.
Great list! Here is another one from my experience:
If your procedure with a government agency or another bureaucratic organization is being delayed (e.g., you sent some forms, they are supposed to send some important document back or contact you, and they haven’t in the expected timeframe), call, don’t email.
There is a good chance that your email will get no reply. If it is replied, there is an excellent chance that the reply will be a useless “we are working on it, just wait”. The chances that it will actually help are tiny, especially if the organization you are dealing with is Vast and Impersonal.
You may have an ugh field about calling, because you will go through a Kafkaesque automated menu, or placed on hold and made to wait ages. But if you can get to a human, there is an excellent chance that they will be helpful and tell you exactly what is going on, or put you in contact with someone who does.
I completely agree. Also, when I send emails and don’t get replies, I tend to use that as an excuse to not do further work. It becomes easy to tell myself: “Well I can’t do anything until they reply to my email.”. This is a huge failure mode, as I’m the one who is losing when the work is not done. As a good rule of thumb, if you haven’t gotten a reply in 2 days, you are never going to get a reply.