Hear No Evil, See No Evil — E-mail Kills the Phone

coondoggie writes to tell us that in a recent study e-mail has overtaken telephony as the most common workplace communication tool. "Research reveals that 100% of the end-users surveyed use e-mail, followed by fixed-line telephones (80%), mobile telephones (76%) and instant messaging (66%). The study points out the three most ubiquitous technologies increase productivity the most. Over 70% of the end-users surveyed say e-mail impacts positively on their productivity, followed by conventional fixed-line telephony (53%) and mobile telephony (52%). From a productivity point-of-view, the research shows that instant messaging, blogs and softphones are considered most disruptive, and could negatively impact productivity if not managed properly."

I'm not shocked...

[zakezuke]

Let's say I wanted to ask someone a question, a simple question with no real need for an immediate reply. I send an e-mail. If I were to use regular phone, I have to deal with polite conversation which I may or may not have time for. Not that I don't mind idle conversation, it's just something I don't always want to deal with.

Let's say someone was visiting me and there a traffic advisory, or something else they would need to index later. I would phone first, then text an instruction block to the phone. Same when grocery of component shopping.

And messaging when someone is not around, e-mail is so much better than voice. Mobile phones are not always reliable to relay all the important words, and some people on land lines use really crappy answering machines, but an e-mail will always get the message out.

E-mail is more important than phone these days. That's rather a fact of life. Welcome to the 21st century, where no one has to talk to anyone.

Re:Discussed this with my boss...

[SCHecklerX]

...but with an e-mail, all parties involved have a record of when it was sent, who received it, and what was said.

which is why my manager at my last job would always call me, or stop by my cube or grab me as I walked by in the hall instead of email whenever she wanted to ensure that whatever idiotic thing she wanted done (the joys of being a network security guy) could not be traced back to her. But, I'd send her a note about it each time anyway. I like having my get out of jail free card. "just to verify, you wanted me to do $foo, and understand the implications, right?"

My current boss does that.

[khasim]

I lost points on my last review because of my "over reliance" on email. And I'll probably lose points on the next one.

Don't forget that in a lot of email systems I can tell when you've opened my email and whether you deleted it or not.

Email is its own paper trail AND with magical CYA powers. And that really annoys a certain type of personality.

Re:My current boss does that.

[bzipitidoo]

Why do you put up with it? Not a company wide problem, deeply embedded in the culture, just one or 2 managers? But if that's all it is, why not complain about those managers? If it is the whole company, why stay? Is it that finding another job is hard, and a pain, what with maybe having to move? Job market is bad, despite what everyone is saying? Or, don't want the troubles that come with being a whistleblower? Or you aren't putting up with it, but you're not quite ready to move yet?

One thing I realized after a particularly unpleasant employment experience was that my inaction had abetted the enemy. After some truly dismal performances by the incompetent and corrupt management, they gained themselves one last chance by blaming and sacrificing all of us. It did them no good, of course. Had I made more noise, had I so much as quit sooner, it might have made a difference and got them all exposed sooner. I kept all my emails, just in case.

Re:Reasons?

[teh moges]

What you said is true, but unfortionate in that it doesn't force people to learn how to speak to one another.
You can't (at least, not right now that I know of) interview for a job by email.
I always hate just emailing important things to other people. You can leave an email sit there, but you have to answer a phone call, or at least acknowledge that you know of the issue. An email can simply be discarded as "Oh, I haven't read that one yet". I prefer to phone to talk, and any important details get emailed. Any non-important issues are emailed, with a follow up call when they (invariably) haven't got back to me within a week.

Maybe it is just where I work, but I can't rely on other people to read emails, despite it being corporate policy.

Flawed survey-result logic...

[ErnstKompressor]

I think if you add the landline and mobile percentages togther, you have 100% "Telephone" usage -- It's like asking if you get your e-mail "wirelessly" or "wired"...

Reminds me of our new VOIP system

[Kadin2048]

A few months ago my company came through the office and tore out everyone's regular phones and replaced them with super-duper Cisco VOIP sets.

The things are crap (you have to sign into them every morning ... as if I don't have enough passwords to remember already, now I need to sign in to my freaking phone?) but they do have one upshot. If I just don't sign into the thing, nobody can call me -- the calls just roll right over into voice mail. And since my voicemails get emailed to me as attachments (where I can conveniently play them at faster-than-normal speed), I can basically ignore the phone handset and do everything through my PC.

By my unofficial count, I'd say something like 30-50 percent of the office is doing the same thing, either intentionally or just because they can't remember to sign into the phones in the morning. I think it's actually boosted productivity -- nobody uses the phones to call around the office anymore, unless they've already sent an email or an IM to see if the person is available on the other end.

Maybe they're not so bad after all...