Ask HN: What are some email pitfalls in big companies?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17705690
by Arkdy • 8 years ago
1 1 8 years ago

Hi HN, I recently left college to work at the head office of a large conglomerate. I expected email correspondence to be trivial, but it turns out that it's an entirely new communications medium with its own set of norms and subtleties. What are some practical situations and solutions that I may run into?

For example, last week Linda emailed reminding me to complete a task that was never assigned to me. Noticing that the probable owner was CC'd, I decided to wait to see if they'd take responsibility instead of responding immediately. Sure enough, 4 hours later Jenny replied taking ownership. In this case, not responding to the email seemed to be the solution, but that's weirdly counter-intuitive. What else might be like this?

Thanks in advance,

Ada.

Related Stories

Loading related stories...

Source preview

news.ycombinator.com