Below is an actual email I received from a Professor whom I am working part-time for. I have deleted all names because the Professor is a nice person but this email was just baffling. There are 2 part-timers; the other one is “name deleted for confidentiality”. I have been informed I had to do something about uploading images. However, all I received to alert me was this entire chunk of messages without a greeting, explanation or preamble. Each email is divided by a line, in reverse chronological order. The actual email contents are not really important. They are just there to show the lengthy email exchange between the other part-timer and my Professor that was sent to me in its entirety without editing.
---------------------------------------------------------------Subject: RE:
Dear name deleted for confidentiality
I am copying this message to Annie. Getting the morphbank uploads organized requires division of labor. So, we'll have to discuss this in a short meeting.
With best wishes,
Prof
---------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: RE:
Dear Prof,
Can I have her email account? I can try contact her.
Best Regards,
name deleted for confidentiality
---------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: RE:
Dear name deleted for confidentiality:
no problem. given that the upload is pretty slow, you may want to share the job with Annie. But I leave it up to you to decide.
With best wishes,
Prof
---------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: ??
Dear Professor,
I am sorry for this. I myself did not expect to stay at home for that long so I did not bring back any material necessasy for uploading. I will try to catch up with this.
Best Regards,
name deleted for confidentiality
---------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: RE:
Dear name deleted for confidentiality:
I was just curious what had happened. It'll be good if we can continue with the upload. Annie is more or less done with extracting the text for the species pages.
With best wishes,
Prof
--------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: RE:
Dear Professor,
I am so sorry that I have not notify you in advance. I went back home in the last couple of days and did not bring back the CD with me. But now I am back to Singapore and will resume working really soon. I am really sorry about making you confused.
Best Regards,
name deleted for confidentiality
---------------------------------------------------------------
Subject:
Dear name deleted for confidentiality:
It looks like you stopped uploading images. Are you still interested in continuing?
With best wishes
Prof
---------------------------------------------------------------
I replied to this email that I was confused as to what was expected of me. This incident ended amicably as I got an idea what I was supposed to do in the end. The whole email could have been summarised. The following is what I would have written.
Subject: Images Uploading
Dear Annie,
With reference to what I have discussed with you previously, “Name deleted” is having difficulty uploading all the images alone. I would like you to help out as well. This would require a meeting to be scheduled for the three of us to discuss the division of labour.
You will be taught by “name deleted” how to go about doing your task. You will also be given a CD with the necessary images.
Please revert back to me as soon as possible when you are available for the meeting.
Regards,
Prof
One lesson I learnt about this episode is never be too caught up with the widespread use of forwarding and "cc-ing". Even if you have discussed the matter with the other party previously, it is still better to write a summary and a proper email. It will also show you have thought things through. At the very least, it is just common politeness.
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This is an interesting sequence, Annie. You do a good job of making an analysis and providing worthwhile advice.
ReplyDeleteThanks!
Thanks, Brad for the encouragement! I am not too happy with this blog post because I felt it was too lengthy (my blogging buddy felt the same way). However, I could not find any way to bring across the message of not forwarding indiscriminately without the post becoming so long.
ReplyDeleteDear Annie,
ReplyDeleteI can really understand the problem of forwarding and "cc-ing" that you have described in this blog. Your professor should have send you a separate message describing the current situation instead of letting you infer what he or she wants through these emails. Anyway, it is quite wierd that "name deleted for confidentiality" cannot find your email address since the email exchanges between your professor and "name deleted for confidentiality" are "cc-ed" to your account.
Besides, i spotted some grammatical and format errors in the reply messages that your professor wrote. For example, a comma should be used in place of a ":" after "dear name deleted for confidentiality". A sentence containing grammatical error is "It looks like you stopped uploading images." These mistakes were overlooked probably because these emails were composed hastily and your professor was anxious to resolve this situation.
The e-mail you received is indeed very confusing and bad written on the part of your lecturer. It has punctuation mistakes as well as some grammatical ones. There is excessive usage of 'cc-ing' , and it is not a good way to send important messages. The response you wrote gives a correct picture of what needs to be done and is less confusing.
ReplyDeleteHello,
ReplyDeleteDid you notice my new blog: http://forwardability.blogspot.com/-- all about the fun, fuss, and fury of the forwarded emails.
Will appreciate your comments.
Wish you and your family season greetings, happy holidays, happy Hanukkah, merry Christmas, Winter Solstice, Muharram, and a very happy and prosperous new year!!