Disruptions: It is rude to send a "Thank You" e-mail.

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/10/etiquette-redefined-in-the-digital-age/

by nickbilton • 13 years ago

13 22 13 years ago

bits.blogs.nytimes.com

Some people are so rude. Really, who sends an e-mail or text message that just says “Thank you”?

hsmyers• 13 years ago

Another haxor wannabe (regardless of his age) using tech as an excuse to be rude. Kinda like programmers and their endless complaint about documentation :)

tedchs• 13 years ago

Are people getting so many 2-word "thank you" emails a day to show this article has a valid point? Don't get me wrong, sending merely "thank you" as a reply-all to a 200-person recipient list is one of the biggest email sins. But as a unicast, it serves the purpose of acknowledging receipt. If it was worth sending, it was worth knowing it was received, understood, and appreciated.

webwanderings• 13 years ago

I think you're missing the point. Sending a thank-you note to a 200-person list is a waste of time and rude to those who don't send such notes at every occasion. If you need acknowledgement than what's better than knowing that other person has read your email? (the default behavior of Facebook messages by the way). It is however another matter if the person who read your email decide to not reply back.

I think this article makes a lot of sense.

schmrz• 13 years ago

My mother realized this long ago. Now we communicate mostly through Twitter.

My first impression was that this is just sad but I guess that different people (and cultures) have different expectations when it comes to communication.

With that said, the author is living inside a bubble created by his environment and his expectations. Saying that everyone should conform to his way of communicating is rude. Saying "thank you" to someone (through whatever communication channel you find most appropriate) is generally not rude.

davidmr• 13 years ago

Maybe this is why the people I interview almost never send us thank you notes. Here I thought it was just a general decline in etiquette, but they're really just being respectful of our time!

Seriously though, I'm curious how many people send thank you emails (or even cards) after an interview. I was always taught that it was extremely rude not to do this, but I'd say as a conservative estimate, we get thank you e-mails after less than 1 of every 10 interviews.

xur17• 13 years ago

I thought it was standard practice to send thank you emails or cards after an interview. I figured some people forgot, etc, but 1 out of 10 is a lot lower then I expected.

Honestly, it only takes a few minutes to write a simple thank you note and send it, so there's no excuse not to.

incongruity3• 13 years ago

Interesting.

I'm recently out of graduate school and I've been interviewing for full-time positions recently. I send a thank you email 8-24 hours after every interview, with very few exceptions.

In contrast, I've been surprised/disappointed by the general vibe I've gotten in the interview process with a number of employers, large and small. Put most simply, there's little respect shown for candidates' time or situation. (This has been echoed through watching other classmates' experiences as well, so it's not just me being a low-value candidate)

The specifics vary, but it always clearly a one sided interaction and little effort is put in to relations with potential employees except for the most high-profile, rock star candidates.

To me, that seems to be a serious failing - I appreciate the mindset that says you should treat employees with the same mindset that guides your interactions with customers - especially in high-talent or high customer contact industries where employee satisfaction translates quickly into real business value.

So, I guess my point is that I feel the job search process reveals more about society in general when viewed from both sides.

Still, I will always send the thank you notes. I figure the place I want to work is one that appreciates the small gestures as well as the big ones...

greenyoda3• 13 years ago

"Put most simply, there's little respect shown for candidates' time or situation."

And the same companies that treat job seekers rudely will probably complain about how hard it is to find qualified employees these days.

"To me, that seems to be a serious failing - I appreciate the mindset that says you should treat employees with the same mindset that guides your interactions with customers..."

A lot of big tech companies aren't known for their wonderful customer service either.

hfsktr• 13 years ago

I used to send an email (and still do sometimes) but sometimes it seems that there isn't a point. Usually I think I just give up hope and figure an email that they delete isn't going to make a difference in the end. When it's a job that I actually want (or with a company that can provide that job later) I go out of my way to make sure I send it and make it known I want to work there.

Occasionally I want to send the email but feel really awkward about asking for contact info in an interview (especially when there are more than one person at once). When they give a business card or I have their info beforehand I generally do even if it's just an awkward 'thanks for the time'. Somehow I feel like if they wanted me to contact them they would provide the info. I know I should make the effort to get the info but as you can see from my mindset above I generally feel like I bombed and it's pointless anyway.

Back on topic, I recall having to do interview stuff in classes (can't remember which...language arts maybe) in both high school and college and it was always brought up to send a thank you. Maybe people didn't pay much attention.

incongruity3• 13 years ago

Apologies, but I'm shocked by the self-centered, entitled crap I see here; most if not all of those annecdotes speak to the self-important, self-absorbed nature of modern society.

(Side note: this isn't just my opinion - there's a decent amount of research on the growth of narcissism in modern scotiety. Look at the work of Dr. Jean Twenge, for example)

A small example:

>My father learned this lesson last year after leaving me a dozen voice mail messages, none of which I listened to.

If you enable voicemail and allow people to leave you messages, it's on you to listen to them. Social interactions are no different than product or software design - don't include an affordance for a feature that you don't want the user to use or, worse, will result in guaranteed failure to accomplish the desired task. The fault isn't the caller's.

greenyoda3• 13 years ago

Another indication of Mr. Bilton's self-centeredness and entitlement is that he posts tons of articles from his own NY Times blog (and nothing else) to HN, assuming that we all want to read it:

http://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=nickbilton

Other than those posts, his total contribution to HN was one comment made over a year ago. It's a bit ironic that someone who can't even be bothered to listen to his father's voicemails would assume that a community that he apparently doesn't consider himself a part of will want to read everything he has to say.

DanBC• 13 years ago

Not as bad as some people, but still:

(http://imgur.com/OxrsFTP)

saurik3• 13 years ago

Yeah... I am someone who agrees with most of the statements made by the author (and if you don't, try spending ten hours in one day trying to catch up on five days of email and failing: the emotional response you have to "thanks!" changes pretty quickly; even still, though, I usually can't really fault the sender), but that voicemail example was just inane: if he doesn't want voicemail, he should turn it off... he can even leave the message, but turn off the recording and storage. If he can't for some reason, he should just have the message tell people he can't check messages, and that they should text him (or whatever he had wanted).

Frankly, though, if he doesn't want to listen to voicemail, he should sign up for PhoneTag or YouMail or some other "uses humans to transcribe voicemail" services and then stop whining about it, as the user then gets to leave the voicemail they expected and that he even invited, and he gets the text message he wanted. Technology solved this problem a long time ago, and if he doesn't want to use it, that's really his own fault.

greenyoda3• 13 years ago

"try spending ten hours in one day trying to catch up on five days of email and failing: the emotional response you have to 'thanks!' changes pretty quickly"

I actually have the opposite reaction: when I'm trying to catch up on e-mail, any message that I can read and delete in a couple of seconds gives me a sense of relief. And the fact that it's a personal thank-you rather than some outdated notification from a build server makes it even nicer.

hnacc10• 13 years ago

This article is a result of what happens when you have no idea what to write about but you need to get something out quickly + when you want to sound sophisticated and socially progressive.

rm999• 13 years ago

I can't tell if this article is supposed to be sarcastic or tongue-in-cheek. I actually think it's part of a worrying pattern from nytimes to be idiotically controversial, perhaps to increase readership and link shares.

Anyway, I'll assume it's serious. A great piece of advice I heard a long time ago: if you constantly feel you're in a rush or don't have enough time for small tasks, you're probably not actually busy, you're mentally disorganized. Simplify the way you perceive the world and properly prioritize things. I feel like that advice applies well to this article. A superfluous e-mail is not a big deal.

biff• 13 years ago

Rude: "Thank you", vocal communication, simple requests for information

Perfectly acceptable (?): futzing with electronics when dining with others, talking loudly into the ether regardless of setting, sending passive-aggressive links to Google

Manners aren't passé, simply underappreciated in some quarters. In others they can make all the difference.

jerrya• 13 years ago

Fwiw, I'm in the habit of sending thank you emails but I always change the subject from:

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit

Re: Lorem ipsum dolor sit -- Thanks!

(On disqusish comment systems, I often upvote a reply to suggest I saw it rather than reply once more.)

bluntly_said• 13 years ago

This is self-centered and egotistical to a fault. So a thank email is too hard to deal with, but I'm expected to read him whine about them?

Disruptions: It is rude to send a "Thank You" e-mail.

Related Stories