To be so bloody fed up that I have to spend half my time chasing up people for a reply?

[FrustratedDotCom]

Let's say I have a to-do list: Email Sharon, Peter and Mike. Yet as soon as email them, it generates three more items on my to-do list for a few days later: Chase up replies from Sharon, Peter and Mike. Because invariably they will not reply.

Even worse is when Sharon says she will get back to me by 10am Friday. It's now 4.30 and I haven't heard anything. Yet other things are in place now that were dependent on her reply this morning.

I've really had enough with it all today.

If your company culture is that you have emailed and the onus is now on them, you need do nothing.

If not - then YANBU. It's a pain

TOTALLY AGREE! I could do so much more for people if they actually responded ffs.
Today I literally spend 4 hours calling, texting and emailing people who I've been trying to get hold of for the last month ! It's not even hard to reply to a text, two minutes AT MOST! It's even worse when they reply to the least important part of your email ! My job is helping people as well so I literally can't do my job until they reply. So infuriating.

YANBU. My job involves organising events for members of our organisation. The only reason that people are members is to get access to these events and they choose which they want to attend. My invitations include a deadline for replies but I can guarantee that if I don't follow up several times I will get e-mails the day before from people who want to come and will get annoyed if I say it's too late. I have even had one person complain to the boss when I said there were no places left when she replied the morning of the event- she claimed that I should have phoned her if she didn't reply by the deadline (despite the fact that if I had to individually call every person who didn't reply it would take me days).

Same here. I'm only in two days per week so I'd've thought it was obvious they'd need to attend to any emails from me but...no. I've given up giving a shit now. It's up to them! They also do this thing of giving me work which I have to hand straight back as I can't start until they've done X,Y & Z.

YANBU but wherever possible I go and speak to people, or call them. Gets a reply much quicker. I also always give a deadline. One which is a day before I need it!

I can't speak to people on the phone, mostly because I need to include a lot of information in the emails and the emails act as a record of what's been happening.

The worst is when I email someone on, say a Tuesday, about a visit I need to do the following Monday. I need to confirm times, what's going on, what resources I need to bring - and they don't reply. It means I have to send them chasing emails on a Sunday afternoon because otherwise I quite literally do not know what I need to bring with me on the visit. They've had all week to reply.

Turns out Sharon had gone home at 4:30pm, thanks for making me wait all day for an email that hasn't come.

I will include a "unless you let me know otherwise by x then I will do/arrange/book y"

It does seem to help.

I see it as my responsibility to ge my job done. I'd follow up without a phone call, and escalate to agree timescales going forward. I cannot stand it when people don't reply, so I do all I can to make sure they don't have the opportunity. Decide yourself on the details, email to confirm, and if they don't reply then you turn up with the wrong stuff - their error. YANBU but there is more that you can do than just sending an email!

And perhaps make it clear that if you really don't know what you'll need, you won't turn up if they don't confirm? Not sure what your job is so not sure how relevant that is?

You're being too passive, OP. Tell them what you are going to do, unless you hear from them by (time). Then the lack of a reply isn't a problem to you.

Thank you for the tips on how to deal with this!