On average, my inbox at work receives around 30-60 new messages each day. The e-mails are pretty well spread out as far as timing is concerned, however, the content lately has just left me dumbfounded.
This morning an e-mail was sent out concerning some questions and problems a client is having. The client in question expressed an interest in a certain technology but is worried about performance, so the e-mail attempted to get this questions answered. Instead, the following was sent (names have been changed to protect the innocent):
Fred,
Thanks for bringing us into the loop. We have been discouraging people from heavy usage of that particular technology because of the activity it can generate which can lead into performance issue.
We can certainly have a meeting and discuss options in greater detail. Please send as much detail as you can prior to that. I am copying Todd, Todd has the most insight into this issue because we have had these type of requests before. Todd is currently down with a flu for the last couple of days. Its very important that we have Todd in the meeting. Let’s target a meeting Thursday afternoon or Friday, Todd should hopefully be back by then.
I also copying Joe Blow because he tends to interface with this client a lot and he may have some insight into suggesting alternatives.
Teddy
Let me just say that the e-mail that preceded the above was extremely detailed and explained the issues very well, yet we have to have a meeting to figure out the best route to go. Why do we need a meeting? Why can’t this person address the issues in an e-mail or better yet a quick phone call? Nope, we have to waste a few hours in a meeting that could possibly accomplish little to nothing.
These types of issues irk me because they are blatant time wasters. Meetings for everything, should be the slogan as that best describes how it feels.