Why can't people read?!

This one I understand, people working down their inbox so they always see/reply to the most recent one first.
Many times now I have drafted the attachment email and the instruction one together and sent the attachment followed about 2 seconds later by the instructions saying "I've just sent you..."

Our English teacher was fab. One fine day she asked us to write down the step-by-step instructions for making a cup of tea. While we did that, she disappeared into her cupboard and brought out various tea-making supplies, laying them out ready for the practical element.

Then she asked people one at a time to read out their instructions while another pupil followed them. 😂😂

It was the funniest and most entertaining English lesson we ever had, and one we would never forget.

It’s annoys me more on here, and I thinks it’s down to people being know it alls. They need to be so quick to provide an answer they feel they know best about that they don’t bother to actually read any details.

You see it all the time in Style and beauty.

OP “I’m after a fitted white t-shirt. Max budget £20.

Ignorant poster - “X shop has lovely red oversized t-shirts for £75”.

I loved reading comprehension in primary school! We had different coloured cards, which I think were called SRA cards, I can't remember what the top colour was as I get them confused with the Ginn reading books which we also had, but I was very pleased when I reached it.

I find myself wasting time re-wording emails to make them as simple and concise as possible to try and get the answer I need

So you'd rather they waste their time by reading an email that you could have made shorter and more to the point?!

If you can make an email shorter, do it. If you can put the whole point of the email in the subject line, do it.

I'm right in this situation at work at the moment. Massive ongoing implementation of a new company-wide system that goes live on the 1st April (lol) and the managers are ploughing ahead with configuration regardless, despite not knowing what they are doing re the nitty-gritty of the finance side. I have made dozens of notes, recommendations and suggestions, and I'm having to email them to the bosses one by one. They cannot cope with receiving an email with more than one subject in it.

I sent them one this morning highlighting a specific potential issue and providing a proposed solution. Went and spoke to boss about an hour later. Had he received said email? Yes, he said. I then expanded on why there was a problem and he said 'Ooh, I know, what we could do is this ......(etc etc)........" which was exactly what I'd already emailed him and told him. So he was telling me his bright idea, which was the solution I'd given him already.

There really are not enough eye-rolls in the world...

Not related to the email comprehension side of things, but I had someone send me an article recently which they had "written" where they left a prompt in halfway through. Not only had they got AI to write it for them, they hadn't even read what it produced....

I find that when someone asks me for my availability for a meeting, and I reply "I can do any time this week apart from Thursday afternoon", 90% of the time they will reply "That sounds great, how about Thursday 3pm"?

You can't use the excuse "the email was too long" for that one, it is one sentence, you have just been too lazy to ready it properly.

I now put apart from or except in bold, to aid the comprehension-challenged.

I always get this, I spell their name incorrectly in my response and then funnily enough mine is always spelt correctly going forward.

Ouch! A well-deserved spanking for me there, masterfully delivered. My apologies for raising your ire, and my thanks for a lesson not to try to do too many things at once.

I am really petty and to combat that i always highlighted the part they didnt read in the original email.

Then forwarded 'please see below highlighted section in answer to your query'

Part of the problem is AI.

I thi k it's being used more and more. And it isn't real people who are answering our queries and complaints so you just go round in circles.

I've been trying to get a pension issue sorted for months. But they still haven't even answered my first question. And just keep getting the same replies despite me explaining why that wont work multiple times.

About to put in a complaint just waiting for their next reply, if its the same just going to have to complain.

The worst these days is when they've forgotten to delete the AI prompt at the bottom asking if they want to edit in someway.

Here's an example-

If you’d like, I can help you add a closing line, adjust the tone, or prepare a follow‑up message

I mean just proof read what you've sent me. Im not an idiot I know you haven't answered my query.

Assh*s

Yeah anyway.

Oh lord yes! I honestly wonder how some people function in life on only ever half-reading things.

Sometimes I think it must be because there are standard letters/ responses for certain situations/queries and the person dealing with them doesn't bother to properly read your message they just noticed a keyword and think "Meeting room response" or whatever

I think the problem is schools concentrate on "Literature" comprehension rather than real life comprehension, so all about fiction and poems rather than "everyday" English. When I was in school, we did comprehensions on non fiction, instructions, recipes, technical datasheets etc - but I saw none of that as our DS went through secondary school over the past decade or so.

I sympathise. Does anyone remember doing "Comprehension" lessons at primary school in the 1980s? I used to think it was the most boring pointless lesson, but now I understand why we did it!

Incredible how many time I text or email a client with a question of two options, and they just glibly reply "Yes" without saying which option they want.

Well Shirley, the architect told me it'd all be finished by Tuesday.

Oh wait. Why can't people read? Dunno. In a rush, energy, reading skills, misreading a reply as the OP.

I came up against this just yesterday. Emailed “I would like to see a physical copy of x” and the reply was “do you want to see a physical copy of x?”
Maddening.

Solidarity OP, I hear you - and have diligently RTFT 😂

Extra solidarity for sadmin related hell. I've gad to navigate 4 close bereavements in 5 years, and the instinctive grieving process now comes with a clench of equally instinctive fear of bureaucratic fubar.

A minor one - insisting on keeping my late DP on the electoral roll despite multiple notifications he is no longer mortal. I gave up in the end, and may have said something snipoy about oyija boards - and of course it has ceased on moving.

Slightly more serious, my Dad had a PM as his end was not easy and there are still unresolved issues in my mind anyway.

I waited ages for the results, only to discover, after a polite and inquisitive phone call, that an error in my email address had caused it to keep bouncing back for weeks. Yet nobody thought to ring me to check.

Reading said PM, I was astonished to find a massive error. Think references to an organ being present and normal that had been removed due to severe illness, and that informed ongoing treatment, recorded all over his hospital notes. I had a brief moment of panic that it wasn't my Dad, although other details were right. I checked with the consultant at the hospital in case it was some bizarre personal Mandela Effect, then notified the coroners office.

To be fair I had a long sincerely apologetic phone call from a pathologist, and the culprit was a badly edited template. Lessons have hopefully been learned....

Nobody does it anymore, no one fully reads emails fully reads t+c's, read forms
What drives me so mad is vinted - they don't read the description or details
loading two items up yesterday someone makes an offer , then asks what size it is ? I am like its in the details 😑read it
Another one what material is it - i have listed in the details as well as shown a photo of the material and care label - Go back and fully read the listing
My own mother signs up for something, then a few months later is like why i am still paying for this every month, because mother when you siogned up you agreed to pay this amount every month - its in the t+cs you agreed to read them before you sign up 🙄

Have you tried numbering your lists OP?

I get this all the time at work and it's infuriating. Someone misspelled my name 7!! times last week in one email thread. Despite it being in my email sign off, and my email address actually being myname@ so it couldn't have been any clearer. I pointed it out to her politely and she still got it wrong twice more

The mind boggles

This has GOT to be a deliberately ironic post, hasn't it?