To be annoyed by lack of response to electronic messages to work colleagues?

[bakedpotatoforlunch]

It's two colleagues in particular. To say at the start I get on with both these individuals very well at a professional and social level. There are certainly no personal issues between us at all. We all work in the same relentlessly busy organisation where there is a good deal of electronic communication needed.

And yet, from these two people in particular whenever I text or email them in context of work I have no response or acknowledgement. Which leaves me irritated. A brief one word answer would usually suffice - eg Thanks - depending on the context of course.

But there's usually......nothing. Which sometimes leaves me wondering - esp with emails - have they actually seen the message? (I can tell with text but not email) Do I need to send another one just in case? Also, to know what they are doing with the message is usually helpful to me in moving forward with stuff - I'll know so and so is aware of such and such etc.

I can only think that they imagine such messages just don't NEED a reply. By contrast other colleagues do reply. This includes the boss - a very hard worker who probably has less time to spare than any of us - who always acknowledges, usually within an hour, any message I occasionally need to send to him.

But apart from anything else is it not simply good manners to reply to a message?

So..

YABU - chill out, this is a busy work situation, they've got the message, you've done your bit, just get on with your day.

YANBU - it is quite reasonable to be irritated not to receive an acknowledgement of a message.

Just today I had a couple of email questions from a client. I replied quite promptly. Turns out this client had contacted sleepy co-worker five hours earlier and they had not managed to answer for several hours. It wouldn't be a big deal if he'd been busy and this incident also makes me wonder if the client is used to slow or no response to said co-worker and reached out to me instead.

This is a fair point and shouldn't happen in a team where there is trust.

It's terrible working with someone you cannot rely on so you feel you have to know they have seen the message and are taking care of things. Such coworkers will also not care when things go tits up.

I was once asked to research and then write a document with recommendations in. I then spent several weeks working on it and then sent it to the people who asked for it…….and received no acknowledgment/ response whatsoever…..absolutely nothing. It’s a regular occurrence now. I work on and produce a document, send it off……and literally nothing.

I’ve simply stopped bothering or caring now. Any last tiny shred of goodwill and motivation has finally been snuffed out, so from now on I’ll be doing the absolute bare minimum and still get paid the same with much less stress and effort involved. And they can piss off if they think I’m going to continue doing things to help out or that aren’t really part of my job.

When people don’t bother to even acknowledge your work it lets you know exactly where you stand. I am not valued or considered of any importance whatsoever so…..fuck em!

Abitboring
I had a colleague like that. Unfortunately people had to keep everything in emails because it was very exhausting having your work held up because someone forgot/claimed they didn't know/you didn't tell them to write the deadline down/something else came up/you didn't tell them when the deadline was / only half the task was done because apparently they didn't get told.

OP
I'd use the like feature to acknowledge if I thought it needed acknowledging, otherwise I'd only reply if it needs to. An entire inbox of "thanks" replies would annoy me.

Unless you need a specific response to the email content then no, no response needed. People have got other things to do.

You state no response is necessary, I don't send unnecessary responses not expect them.

It's considered bad form in my organisation to add more interactions than necessary. I used to spend a good half hour deleting unnecessary messages before we all moved to this format.

However we all get on and regularly have virtual tea breaks to catch up.

I'd never expect a thanks for an email! Imagine all the emails!!

I don’t respond to every email.

In fact I read that it’s bad environmentally to send too many one word emails such as “thanks” because of everyone is doing it that’s a lot of pointless emails going around using up energy.

This is really interesting and is certainly making me think out of my own context. I totally get that in situations where there are multiple numbers of emails being sent and received it is not possible or desirable personally to acknowledge receipt of every single one. There is an assumption that they are recieved and that is fine.

It's in situations where there is or maybe needs to be some tacit acknowledgement that something has been sent - which will vary greatly, from a substantial piece of work mentioned by a pp - to something much less substantial but nevertheless might be perceived as a contribution to a project which has been a shared endeavour (more the context I work in).

I'm a bit more concerned when I see for eg. my daughter's boyfriend apply for jobs and maybe get one emailed response in thirty. Or - much worse - is invited for interviews and is never told whether or not he has been successful. After a couple of weeks have passed by with no further acknowledgement he assumes he hasn't been.

Probably when we do so much of our communication electronically it is maybe tricky to discern when a response is needed/expected and when it isn't and is even a nuisance, especially when dealing with many e-messages each day. But sometimes it is very obvious. And isn't the great benefit of electronic communication the fact that it can be done in seconds?

To be honest, the “thanks” messages do my head in. My inbox is full enough without clogging it up with pointless one liners. If I’ve sent it to someone, and there’s no bounce back, I’ll assume they’ve got it.

Can you not set a read receipt?

I disagree with the majority, I think your expectations are reasonable.

I work for a major multinational with "thousands of emails flying" like others have said, yet I still find the time to acknowledge receipt from my direct stakeholders, junior or not. If anything to let them know I have seen the email amongst the mass and that I am happy with whatever they've sent, or that I will come back to them later if I can't respond immediately.

It is very unprofessional not to respond to an email directly addressed to you, and the fact that even your boss responds to those emails reflect the good practices of your company. I would talk to them to check they have received your email, and ask them for a quick response next time.

If you think they aren't getting emails send with a read notification

Emails with a question require a response.
i’m having this issue with a colleague in a different department- never replies (i’ve been chasing him every 2 weeks for a year ) but then will randomly email asking about it when he’s got a deadline. It’s downright rude.

I do this as default on all emails and the delivered/read receipts are diverted into a separate folder so I don't have to see them all but they're there if I need to check.

The Outlook "reaction" option has greatly reduced the number of brief emails I send, but I do also say thank you where it is merited.

Unless it warrants a reply, then I never do.
If it's sent outside of my working hours then I don't even open it.

Did you read and action the mid year report? Needs a reply

I am having lunch on level 2 doesn't

So depends

Would you thank them for the thanks email if they emailed thanks to you?

I think an emails just to say thanks is completely pointless. We get so many emails, it's just clutter. Clutter in my inbox. Clutter in my brain. Clutter on a server somewhere wasting carbon. Some people where I work even have a line under their email signature saying no need to say thanks!

Some messages I need an acknowledgement that it's been received, as some colleagues will ignore the contents and then claim later they never got the email. It's to cover my backside really.

Otherwise, well, there's a lot of minimum effort / 'quiet quitting' going on at my place due to poor pay rises and under resourced teams, so I get why some can't be arsed to be polite.

Tricky one to answer OP. If the actions you're giving the people aren't being done, it's reasonable to ask them to say they've received and can meet your deadline. If you're giving people info and/or they always do what's been asked, Yabu. I work in an org of 55 and recently agreed at leadership level to wean people off thanks emails. They're a massive waste of time and are unnecessarily distracting.

Could you put a read receipt on emails?

If its not something they actually have to reply to, like a specific question to them directly then yes yabu. Just turn on read recipts if you're that anal

Stuff that needs a response - absolutely unreasonable to not reply.

Stuff that doesn’t have a question in it, or other need for some kind of response - waste of everyone’s time to have ‘thanks’, ‘got it’ etc clogging up space and work flow. Most people have email alert pop ups on, and every single one is a distraction.

Im firmly in the camp of ‘if you want a response, ask for one’.