My manager sends me a teams message everytime she sends me an email

[Stripitout]

To tell me she’s sent me an email

Anyone got either a suitable response which won’t get me sacked or a funny response which will

Wait…’want coffee’?! Now I want your old boss 😂

Blimey my manager would drive them all to a nervous breakdown then, we consider it a quiet day if she's phoned each member of the team less than 10 times (and maybe one of those calls is really necessary!). We reckon she just can't think without talking.

I probably do some of this.
Now that we all work from home.
I can't call anyone for weeks on end.
No one is in so no point going into work.
It's very unhealthy.
It's awful trying to write every nuance of things down on an email. So long winded.
I take ages finding the right words.
Hate waiting for a response too.

Now I feel awful. What the fuck happened to work. It used to be social. Now it's an email / teams war zone.

Once a week I used to be able to talk to colleagues. Now ... forget it.

I will be more mindful and feel even more isolated!

He has been reading mumsnet as they would approve of this. Heaven forbid anyone juat phones put of the blue

@flyhigher Why can't you call anyone, we do at my workplace. It's what we're expected to do.

We have clients who call and want to speak to us. Or they email us and its easier to call them to answer or get more information. We have a lot of trainees and the experienced people are there to help them make decisions etc.

Plus, as you say, it's hard to get every nuance in an email so often far more efficient to call someone and have a conversation rather than spend hours playing email tennis.

Next time you think 'I wonder what X thinks about Y or when A plans to go to B, don't email them, call them.

Some of the people are so busy where I am if I send them an email about an issue with screenshots or attachments or have copied in others, I might then drop them a quick teams message to let them know there’s an email I need them to respond to. Emails and IM are different and it’s perfectly ok to message someone “hey could you have a look at the email I sent you when you’ve time”.

I also always message people to arrange to call them rather than just ringing. I struggle with focus so if I’m in the middle of something, I don’t want a random phone call out of the blue. I used to work with someone who would ring to chase up minor tasks but then she would think it was appropriate to chat for ages about irrelevant but still work related stuff. I ended up living on do not disturb which then got me complaints that I was unapproachable.

messaging someone to say “hi, are you free for a quick call about xyz” is absolutely a reasonable thing to do. Then I can say “sure I’m free now” or “im about to go on a meeting, I’m free at 10.30” or “I’ll be free in 10 minutes”. It’s not triggering to get random phone calls, just bloody annoying.

This works as long as you can trust your colleagues - where I used to work if something went wrong there was a team who would try and shift the blame off themselves immediately so it was vital to have an email record of what you had said or agreed. They’d also flat out lie about the outcome of meetings and calls. Every single call had to be followed up with an email.

where I am now I’ll happily have phone calls because it’s a very different atmosphere and not so much of a toxic them and us mentality.

Ask your manager to send it to you on teams rather than by email. I work in operations and it sounds like they are highlighting it to you because they want a quick response. But be honest and say you would like to improve your communication and you think doing it this way would be more efficient

For the PP making pass-agg remarks about not being able to call people anymore, heaven forbid, etc.

You can still do this. But where I work it's widely accepted that people are busy and have limited time between meetings, etc. Therefore if you can send a polite message beforehand to say 'are you free to chat now/do you have 5 mins today?' why wouldn't you? It's just being respectful of other people's time.

Our work it's almost impossible to call anyone.
Everyone is always in meetings. Can maybe call at 4. Mostly No one even replies to can I schedule to call you.
It's all email now and waiting for a day.
Or make a phone appointment for the next day.
Before our admin would always have time to talk.
Now no one is free.
It's very isolating. Think there should be set times to call people. Like office hours when you take calls.

The workplace was much friendlier in the 90s and 2000s. I guess that's 20 years ago now!!

Even 2015 it was better

Is it definitely your manager sending a message and not a Teams update as I started getting a Teams notification every time I got an email after updating a few weeks ago.

If the manager is sending an actual message then thumbs up emoji.

Apropos 2015, sometime around then a friend of mine told me that her colleague printed out all emails the boss sent them in 2 copies. One she left on my friend's desk/chair "so she'd see it" and the other she put in a file.

I used to work with someone who would send a long winded email then call me and say ‘I’ve just sent you an email’ and then proceed to tell me all the things that were in the email

used to drive me nuts

Tell her that you monitor your email constantly, so it's more efficient if she could send you the message to let you know that she's just sent you an email by email, rather than on Teams.

See how long it takes for the penny to drop and for her to realise the utter pointlessness of what she's doing!

And then a Teams message to let her know that you've sent that email, of course.

Some people really just don't have enough to keep them busy and are desperately looking for ways to fill their day - and, unfortunately for you, yours as well.

We have phones. We have business customers ringing us up all the time to place orders, and since a lot of what we stock is very specialised, they often have to call to confirm whether they are ordering the right thing. Due to the nature of what we do, they can't just place orders for goods online.

And if you have ever attempted to resolve an import VAT query by email and/or chat bot, you would know that the only way to sort out monumental cock-ups is by getting a human on the other end of the phone.

This is her passively aggressively saying you take too long or don't prioritise her emails.

So either ask her outright or live with it or deal with her requests quicker!

Just to add it would drive me nuts and is very unprofessional.