Why is elderly email still ideal for working communication?

The post is written from some desperation. The fact is that communication on work issues with people (with clients, partners, performers) began to consume too much of my resources (time, attention). The communication tools chosen by my interlocutors tire most of all.

With your permission, I would like to sing a modest ode to an old and kind email, comparing it with other methods of interpersonal communication, which are popular today.

Phone, Skype and other VoIP

When I get a call and ask a question that I can instantly answer, that's fine. If in order to answer, I have to delve into the documents or search, then, of course, it would be better to get a question by mail, if you still need a computer to answer.
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It is inconvenient when I'm on the road (a non-trivial question needs to be written down somewhere, so as not to forget, and there is usually no notepad or dictaphone behind the wheel or in the transport at hand). It is also inconvenient when they call me, and I already talk to someone else.

And the most terrible trend of the last time: the caller does not know what he wants . It seems that people “program” themselves for a contact, making notes in their diaries, having seen the reminder, they contact (call), but only then they begin to think, and what they actually need to say. At best, I listened to a minute mooing in the handset while the caller makes a decision (for example, he remembers that it was a matter of time, but he didn’t figure out what time it would be before the call). And it happens that I have to remind myself about what we spoke there last time and what question we must now solve.

I am also amused when people try to dictate website addresses with their voice (all these cute “he te te pe slash slash colon ve ve ve”, “es like a dollar”, “ce like a Russian es”), and sometimes not only domains, but some internal pages. I really like to write it all down, yeah, first on a napkin, and after dinner - in a browser with an already falling napkin. I would not click on the link in the letter?

Phone calls do not leave logs. The maximum that you can usually find out about past calls: who, to whom, when called. And nothing at all related to the content of the conversation. And the content is important at least even for the subsequent debriefing.

How are lovers of voice communication justified?

It is important for me to solve this in real time.

Well, yes, just wait a few minutes while I turn on the computer to answer you.

Mail does not always reach.

Does your system administrator test the spam filter, or are the deadly performers justified before you?

Print long.

But while you are typing, you will have time to think in advance about what to write.

How do I know that you answered me?

Oh, you can check your mail now from a mobile phone for a couple of thousand rubles, because there is JavaME and, therefore, OperaMini. Yes, you can even screw SMS notifications to the mail if you don’t often visit the computer. In the end, I can send you an SMS or even call myself, but to notify about the mail, and not to list 30 items of goods.

What to do?

How to solve the problem? I increasingly send those who are ready to chat with me for half an hour in the voice box. Either I promise people to call back myself, and I do it only when I have free time. By mail, being at the computer, I answer them instantly. Fortunately, some people understand such subtle hints and go to the mail by themselves in communication with me.

IM

You have ICQ, you have Mail.ru Agent, oh, and you have MSN Messnger? How many more transports do I have to attach to my Jabber?
Search by IM logs is also very “convenient”. A rough match search, this is not Google. And the logs on the server do not keep everything. And it's even more offensive to forget to turn off IM at home and on the way to work catch a bunch of urgent messages there that you won't even see later in the office, but only in the evening when you come home supposedly to have a rest.

There is a Jabber with contacts and logs on the server, a bunch of transports to other networks, several nodes working at the same time, and even a search from Google (if it's GTalk).

But my contacts do not have enough text communication, they will surely be indignant how is it so the file from ICQ is not sent to me.

So, dear customers, or you will all go to Jabber, or if you please write to the mail so that I do not get confused.

Social networks

Some customers even find me in the social. networks, friends there, and then try to communicate personal messages on work issues. Oh my God.

Did you say that email is too hard for you? So you managed to send me a gift "VKontakte".

Fax

Everything is simple: we do not have and will not have a fax in our office, so they simply cannot get me through it. In one company, however, I was offered to send invoices by fax so that the accounting department would pay them immediately, and not after a couple of days when they received the original.
- Why can not send scan accounts?
- Oh, our chief accountant doesn’t trust such things.

The manager who worked on the project from the customer agreed to the experiment: I sent him a scan, he printed it, brought it to the accounting department and said that it was a fax that came to him. A few more accounts were then sent to the same manager by mail, and not by fax to the accounting department. Well, on the New Year, instead of an account, they sent him a bottle of brandy through a colleague.

Nobody, thank God, demanded faxes from us. Although I personally know that in some structures, fax is given almost legal force, and something sent by e-mail is considered only as a reason for the next call.

PS

Sorry for some emotional post. Something on the last working week, I especially boiled.

Voice, IM, soc. Are networks all possible adversaries of mail? I don't seem to be bothered by any other channels, but what about you?

PPS Transferred to "Learn to work." For everything described above concerns business contacts, and the people gave a lot of useful tips on how to solve the problem.