I was hoping for some serious complaints that a startup might be able to offer technical solutions for, but most of the author's issues are pretty trivial.<p>One point he makes does bring up an interesting question though. The author complains about people using one-letter signatures instead of their name. What's the point of signing an email with your name when you're using your own email account? The from header is generally set to include your name already.
A huge one I learned: You can't convince someone to change their mind over email. It has to be in person.<p>(I'm talking about strongly-held decisions or beliefs here. Not the sort of thing where a simple presentation of the facts will do.)
More precisely, he's starting to hate the sort of careless people he emails with on a regular basis. It reminds me of when people complain about crap on Twitter, but fail to realize it's down to following the wrong people.
I love email and I let everyone know.<p>I don't chat, text, or tweet. I don't have a land line any more. Only a few people have my cell phone #. My office phone goes directly to voice mail.<p>But email is a different story. I don't have instant notification, so it doesn't interrupt me. I check it when I'm ready and I respond quickly, sometimes immediately, almost always within 24 hours. Modern spam filters have made this a breeze.<p>I bet about half the people I know I have never met, I don't know what they look like, and I've never heard their voice. But we have conducted so much business by email that I feel that I still know them well.<p>I remember that before email, getting something done was as much a matter of managing interruptions as focusing on the task at hand.<p>But email has helped me to once again become the master of my own time. I can't imagine getting much done any other way.<p>[I love hearing from all hn'ers by email. You will get a reply. And you can sign your email any way you want.]
I agree with the signature part in emails where people talk about "Please think about the environment before printing this email." And some people have some grand quotes of this and that. My college's admin staff were notorious for doing this.<p>I find that utterly annoying.
- I print emails, when they contain some information I will need while say driving somewhere.<p>- I use colors which help with Question / Answer situations.<p>- I use single letter sign offs when on a cellphone responding.<p>- I use some txt speach when on a cellphone, not too crazy because sometimes thinking of a clever abbreviation is more painful than just writing the damn word out, also autocomplete helps. I also explicitly tell people that "u" is ok or "ur" or "k" or something in that nature, but things I can't figure out within 20 seconds are not.<p>So yea, reply to shitty txt speach "I dont get it, please say again without abbreviations" it annoys because they have to send it twice.<p>Reply to a shitty colored email with a massively colored one.<p>Single letter signoffs... wait what bothers you about this?
>I used to be a big offender in this area, but am a true convert that if you can say something on the phone or face to face, then you should do it. Only use email to communicate when you need some kind of record, or cannot deal with it verbally otherwise.<p>You <i>always</i> want "some kind of record". A record isn't a "ha ha, told you so" thing, but it keeps communications accurate and accountable. We've all dealt with situations where FUBARs happened because verbal communications were misinterpreted, or people simply lied because they knew there was little accountability.