re: Phone call or email

For work, you can take your text (assuming to/from a client) and fark off and die. At least in Teams, I can use a keyboard to tell you to read the meeting synopsis that was sent out two days ago and embarass your arse.

I'll see your message, and either call you, or get to a real keyboard and compose a response (WTF are people doing typing multi paragraph responses, in any app, on their phones?) I have learned to prefer the call, and then (critical) summarize decisions or actions via email immediately after.

People don't read shite, but they want answers to complex situations. I tell you what I tell you, and then document that I told it to you. Then, when you claim I didn't warn you about something, I can pull up the email you didn't read, that recounts our conversation proving you're incompetent.

teams

Email

There’s maybe a 50% chance I’ll see your email so you better call me if you need something

With work I would say call but that's because the people who i talk to don't understand what I deal with and it will be quicker to just talk on the phone.

E-Mail.

My role is heavily behind the scenes and involves actual work I need to show to clients versus being abstract conversations. Phone calls suck up all the time I need to actually do the work they pay us for.

We have client managers and business development folks who are the screen-facing "relationship building" side of the company.

Only struggle is by the time a new client is signed on and has dealt with them for several weeks via 100% unstructured conversational phone calls, their first instinct with me is to try to get on calls. So I kinda have to "train" them to email me since everything I do involves paperwork/data/being in their system vs. conversational calls.

I also just generally consider cold calls to be "skipping the line". If people have requested calls with me and we've placed them on the calendar for the days ahead, depending on what else I have going on, calling me for me to stop what I'm working on and deal with your issue is unfair to everyone else.

I'm extremely responsive on email, which is important to note. It doesn't sit there unanswered for long.

For substantive matters -

- Email outlining issue/discussion/whatever, inviting a scheduled call

- Calendared call to discuss the email, if needed.

For quick questions I prefer emails, but sometimes a call is easier to cut through the fog when you're trying to explain a concept/legal issue/get an answer, so fine.

What drives me crazy is Teams and Zoom calls - they're almost never necessary. In my profession (law), among ourselves, it's almost always straight up calls, often with a telephone dial in. We don't need to see each other. With clients (corporate) - it's always Teams/Zoom, because that stupid corporate bureaucracy has leaked into everything they do. If you need face time with customers or you need to show some unnecessary doodle or bar chart to the "team" - whatever, but leave me out of it.

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calling me for me to stop what I'm working on and deal with your issue is unfair to everyone else.

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That’s my whole thing. No line skipping unless I report to you directly. That’s the only exception.

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What drives me crazy is Teams and Zoom calls - they're almost never necessary.

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This is probably the biggest thing I loathe from Covid.

I worked 5 years in my remote office thousands of miles away from clients without ever getting on a video camera for them to look at me. We met in person when I visited their site, but otherwise, the phone.

Since Covid, everyone thinks we need to have cameras in our faces. I'm so tired of seeing people yawning and picking their face and talking to others through the screen. And I absolutely hate having to be mindful of not doing any of those things when I'm trying to focus on the content.

I keep my camera off for 90% of casual calls. Even when hosting webinars, my preference is to intro on camera, and then turn it off so I can focus on what I'm presenting. Otherwise I'm so distracted that I zone out from the material I'm speaking on.