Rant mode engaged. I’m a state pencil pusher. I administer benefits for elected officials, their staff, with regular administrative employees. I’m 100% convinced that as a whole, Americans are functionally illiterate. I will spend 30 minutes to an hour crafting an organized email with TL;DR bullet points at the end to have people call me to ask me a question that said email already answered. Bro/sis, did you even attempt to read the words on the page? It’s not an age thing, or an education thing either. It’s old people and young people. It’s elected officials, people with PhDs, masters, and JDs, along with highschool and college graduates. It’s gotten to the point that I will make people pull up the email I sent out to read along while I point out where in the text their questions were already answered. I’m one person doing the work of 3, and god damn I hate doing the same task over and over because people can’t be bothered to fucking read.
People often only really absorb the information from the first paragraph of something like an email, so make sure the critical stuff is there.
I have found it helpful to put the TLDR at the top, rather than the bottom of the email. Title that section something like ‘Executive Summary’ so people subconciously feel more important reading it. Follow with intermediate levels of detail, then the full level of detail, if needed.
It takes a bit more effort to write in this multi stage way, at least until you’re used to it, but it means the information you’re trying to transmit is more likely to actually get absorbed, which leads to fewer time wasting phone calls or ‘as per my last email’ mails. If your recipient feels like they’ve already grasped the basics of the information from the TLDR they’re also more likely to read on, whilst actually paying attention. If you need information from them, make sure you list the exact points you need, with once sentence describing each to reduce the cognative load on the recipient.
Of course, none of this works every time, but even saving yourself one call a day can be a massive benefit, both mentally and productively.
I know you’re just explaining, not excusing, but if it’s literally you’re job, then you can put the effort in to read the whole goddamn email.
Whilst I absolutely agree that they should read the whole email, I look at it from the opposite side; I want them to absorb the important information so they don’t bother me with trivial or repititious questions, and I know they’ll absorb information at the start of my mail with a higher probability than information at the end, so I put the critical stuff at the front and repeat it in more detail later. It’s for my sake, rather than to make their job easier, that it also makes their job easier is a bonus.
One of the most effective rules I’ve ever heard is “make it easy for them to give you what you want”. In this case, the poster wants them to stop bothering them with trivial questions, so make the answers easy to digest and they can more easily not bother you. It holds in pretty much any situation when you want something from someone, from asking for a raise to ordering at a resturant. It’s proven invaluable advice over the years.
I get it, and I’ve definitely gotten better at writing emails over the years… It still kind of annoys me though.