2) We don’t want to pause our music to talk to you.
3) We don’t even talk to each other on the phone — why would we want to talk to you?
But the biggest reason is A TRAIL. If I e-mail you back, you can see what was said in the future. You can’t tell me I forgot to tell you something because it’s right there. You can’t tell me I “never reached out” because we can both SEE it. I don’t have to trust your recollection.
And, in a group inbox, you can see who has been responded to. I got forwarded a voicemail from my supervisor (through e-mail! imagine that!) asking me to call some lady back for clarification. So I did, against my will of course…and she said somebody had called her yesterday.
Who? When? What did y’all talk about? Is follow-up necessary?
Phone calls back and forth only work in a workflow where the standard procedure is to *log* phone calls in a shared system with a brief summary of what was discussed. Otherwise, y’all need to let us e-mail. It’s not just about a generation gap. It’s also about efficiency.
Thanks for coming to my TED Talk. Any feedback can be proffered via e-mail.
EDIT
Also: let’s keep it real – we multi-task better than you do. If I’m on the phone with you, I’m FORCED to do that ONE thing and put whatever you want above all the other things I could’ve been doing. If you e-mail me, I can research what you want (while doing other things), find the solution (while doing other things), and offer it to you in a nice concise package (while doing other things) without sitting on the phone with you in awkward silence looking for the answer to whatever you think is urgent. (It’s not urgent. You’re not dying. I know it’s not urgent.)
OP is being kind in saying “i don’t have to trust your recollection.” people straight up lie, especially customers.
Yep – I often do phone interviews, but when it comes to sticky subjects a trail can be super important. A dodgy charity I wrote about (long story short, they raised hundreds of thousands for a cause and then kept it) kept refusing to answer my questions, maybe thinking it would keep the article about them from being published. It was published, and they did not look good.
They threatened to sue for libel, claiming I had made shit up. Shown evidence, they backtracked and claimed instead that I hadn’t reached out, denying them the possibility to respond. I sent them the entire, insanely long thread of emails in which I repeated my questions over and over only for them to dodge every single one.
A tall muscular undergrad walking purposely toward the English building, talking on the phone in a loud, assertive voice: I’m gunna kill it! I’m prepared! I’m confident! I’m ready! I believe in myself! After a moment of silence, in a much quieter voice: Yeah, thanks, mom. That helped. I’ll call you after and let you know how it goes. Love you.
If Cthulhu can be summoned by humans who are so far beneath it, why can’t humans be summoned by ants? The answer is they should be.
Well if a bunch of ants formed a circle in my house I’d certainly notice, try to figure out where they’d all come from, and possibly wreak destruction there.
That’s why knowing and correctly pronouncing the true name is so important to the ritual. Imagine how impossible it would be to not go take a look if the circle of ants started chanting your name.
And they’re like, you can’t leave because we drew a line made of tiny crystals – now you have to do us a favor.
And you’re like, let’s just see where this goes “yup, you got me… what’s the favor?”
and usually the favor is like, “kill this one ant for us” or “give me a pile of sugar” and you’re like… okay? and you do, because why not, it isn’t hard for you and boy is this going to be a fucking story to tell, these fucking ants chanting your name and wanting a spoonful of sugar or whatever.
And SOMEtimes you get asked for things you can’t really do, one of them, she’s like, “I love this ant but she won’t pay any attention to me, make me important to her” and you’re like… um? how? So you just kill every ant in the colony except the two of them, ta-da! problem solved! and the first ant is like *horrified whisper* “what have I done”
This is the best explanation for higher powers I’ve ever really heard.
kids have no concept of anything. i walked into my kindergarten class and one kid asked me what my name was. when i said miss jones, he said “i like that name. did you know i’m in love with you”
i asked my four year old cousin how old he thought i was going to be at my next birthday and he said 8. im 23
once i told a 6 year old that i had finished school and was doing “more school” [university] and she asked “why haven’t you found anyone to marry then”
We were at a museum and I was asking for the student discount and my nine year old cousin looks up at me with his eyes wide and says “wait you’re a STUDENT??”
I used to babysit these three kids and the eldest who was around 11 at the time was talking about how adults are boring and when I told him I was an adult he said, “That’s not true, you’re my age”
our aunt teaches and she has this story about a little girl who really was always pretty quiet in class and then on the final day of kindergarten she just up and stated ‘i’m all teached now. i don’t need to be teached anymore. i’m done of being teached.’
once when i was 19, I told my little cousin that i was 19 and she looked up at me with huge eyes and went, “Does that mean you don’t have to bring an adult with you to the pool?”
My 6 year old cousin saw me driving for the first time, looked up at him mom and said “does that mean she is married now?”
I watched my dad and my niece (3 at the time) arguing over a pair of pants and whether or not they were also a dress. My neice’s argument was that they were, in fact, also a dress because they were blue.
I asked the kids in my daycare class what they thought I should be for Halloween and this little boy goes, “ooh I know! A pickle! You’d be such a good pickle”
On the first day of class with my favorite student of all time, I said, “Are you okay? You look like you have a question.” And she looked me right in the eyes and said, tremulously,
“Can a piranha eat a stapler?”
One time I was working with a kid and he looked up at me and asked “Do you have a boy?” I had no idea what he was talking about, but I told him that I did not have any boys. He looked shocked and then deeply concerned and said “Well, you better hurry up and shave your arms so you can get married; August is next month!”
I was sitting on the floor with my 3yo niece and we were playing with her younger brother’s alphabet blocks and the O had an octopus on it. So I picked it up and asked her what it was.
“Octopus,” she said, all curls and smiles.
“And what kind of animal is an octopus?” I asked. I was looking for “fish” or “sea creature” but I would have accepted almost anything–”weird,” “gross,” even “slimy.” “Underwater” or “it lives in the ocean” would have also been acceptable.
She looks me right in the eye and says, happy as a clam, “It’s a cephalopod.”
rip tumblr 