Quote from B on February 10, 2023, 11:59 am

Hi Guys.

Acknowledging and responding to emotional bids at work: always, or there are exceptions?

We discussed here about the importance of acknowledging and responding to emotional bids or openings from others.

As a result of that thread, I started thanking and writing back, and generally improved my capacity to recognize and respond to emotional bids. The "warmth" in work emails to me increased noticeably.

But, sometimes, as an external consultant - and thus in a work setting - I still get the feeling that responding to every pleasantry going my way could be a mistake.

The specific case

I recently did some work and sent it to this person.

He then shot me this email on a Friday afternoon:

Jim: Goodday Bel,

thank you for your comments on the file.

I enclose a version with our comments.

Would you mind updating it with our comments?

If something's not clear we'll talk.

Thanks a lot

Have a good weekend

* click to expand

Should I have responded immediately?

This reached me on a Friday afternoon.

I reasoned whether I should have responded immediately (ie the same Friday afternoon) with something like this:

Hello Jim,

thank you.

Sure, I'll update the file and send it to you as soon as ready.

Have a good weekend!

On the surface, it made great sense to answer the above:

• it thread expands on the reciprocal pleasantries
• it acknowledges his request
• it responds to his "good weekend"
• it thanks back

In the end though, I chose not to.

My reasoning in not responding was that, had I responded with the above "purely pleasantry email" while being asked to do additional work, I could:

• have led him to think I was focusing on "exchanging pleasantries" and "wasting time" that would have been better spent doing the work he asked me (as in "well, he could have employed this time to do what I asked")
• have given the impression of not being busy (as in "look how much free time he has")
• have led him to think I was responding as an excuse for not doing the work soon, ie not prioritizing his request (as in "what, is he telling me this will take a long time? If so, how long will I have to wait?")
• have compelled them to dedicate time to reading my email when there was still work to be done
• have sounded "off": while his "thanking me" is due to the fact I'm doing the work, me "thanking him" could give the impression I "need this work" or want to just "have the last word"
• have implied I was certain that I did not need to talk to him to do my work (he wrote to me "If something's not clear we'll talk"). While I had scanned the text of what he sent me immediately, I could not be sure I wouldn't need to call him to ask for clarifications unless I thoroughly checked the contract, which would have taken more time.

What I did

So in the end I did not respond that Friday. I instead focused on doing the work, and sent him this email the next Wednesday:

Me: Hello Jim,

I enclose the contract with amendments highlighted in mark-up.

I added to the contract, for coordination, some additional comments and changes at articles ...

If the changes reflect the agreement and are ok for you, I'll send you the final version of the file without mark-ups and changes.

Kind regards,

Bel

* click to expand

Two additional choices I made in answering here were:

• ignored his "would you mind..." question (which I interpreted as him being just extremely polite) as per the recent discussion about not taking inadvertently a frame where I "could, if I wanted, snub them";
• forced myself to not take the opportunity he had given me when he wrote "If something's not clear we'll talk.".

As to point two:

there were in fact things I would have liked to ask him, as I needed to make choices that ultimately he would have to approve.

But, I thought: if my job is to do the work and inconvenience as little as possible, as I learned here on TPM, then here - judging by his wording - it's best to choose the most reasonable option, implement it in the contract, send it to him, and imply it's conditional to his approval - which I tried to communicate by writing these:

I added to the contract, for coordination, some additional comments and changes at articles ...

If the changes reflect the agreement and are ok for you ...

I usually make a different choice if at the outset of a request a client writes "available for a call to discuss": in that case, I take it that he wants to have the call, and I go forward with it.

His response

He shot me this email:

Jim: Gooday Bel,

thank you a lot for the availability.

We'll let you have our feedback as soon as possible.

Have a nice day

I interpreted this email as confirmation that my choices were good.

I also thought about responding to this email, but chose not to, as I felt that many of the above considerations also applied here (not wanting to sound "not busy", not inconveniencing them with additional unneeded communication, etc.).

Besides, he had clearly written to me which next step they would take.

Still, the doubt in my mind remains that I may be doing something off.

Happy to read any comments you may have, Guys.