I used to be like this until I got a job that required constant phone calls. Now if I have to explain something using more than three sentences I’d much rather just talk.
6 years of tech support and I dread email troubleshooting because I know it will take two weeks and 13 exchanges before we can actually start troubleshooting.
I’ve worked as phone support for a year and I hate phonecalls even more.
I’d rather send an email with detailed steps and let people follow the instructions at their own pace. If they fail - remote.
Phonecalls are a weste of everyone’s time.
This is the same as me. Outside of work, though, I’m the cat in the meme.
I disagree. It really is just way simpler and also in most cases it solves whatever problem you have much faster.
The trick is to not respond for an hour and hope their next message is “nvm, fixed it”
Unironically works. They start typing the email and rubber-ducky themselves half of the times.
Easier if you send it to me in writing so I can properly digest it instead of having it immediately spill out of my ears.
I’m with you on this. I prefer important conversations that require me to make a decision or remember something in writing. Just general conversation about what you got up to on weekend? Fine let’s talk it out.
I understand so many more people prefer verbal communication because it’s easier for them to not have to type or put their thoughts into written words. I just wish more of them understood that it’s not the same for everyone and come to a compromise.
Okay, but this is less of a question and more of me having 10,000 choices to make that I’m not actually allowed to decide.
So can you just sit on the phone with me and tell me which buttons I can press without getting fired?
Seems like a management issue.
Christ, tell me about it
It’s a pretty standard bandwidth/latency tradeoff in my view: email is high bandwidth (it’s in writing, you can re-read, etc.), whereas phone is low latency (several back-and-forth explanations can happen in seconds). Each has its place.
If social anxiety is a factor, that’s a perfectly valid, but separate, issue.
I think my main problem is how disruptive it is to your focus. With text I can write a semi quick response then get back to what I was doing. Whereas a phone call requires me to drop everything and give a fellow human my full attention in realtime. It tends to drain my already small social battery.
email is high bandwidth
I don’t think the reasons you stated are about bandwidth, and considering writing an email is IMO more effort than explaining on a phone call and will take me longer, I’d argue phone calls are higher bandwidth than email - at least in one on one conversations, since things change when you want to inform multiple people.
Though of course what you listed is important, and it sucks when people refuse to write out basic details that you could come back to later or forward to somebody else.
im introverted but i actually prefer this than arguing over text
The best thing about arguing over text is that you can just ignore it!
Though you shouldn’t
Me: yes
Me after the call: “could you send a summary of what we discussed?”
I’ll even slip in a passive aggressive, “this is why I prefer emails” or, “maybe next time you can just send me this”
My hero 🫶
I’m gonna want a paper trail, so let’s just cut out the middle step and do it by email from the start
“This meeting could have been an email. That I accidentally deleted.”
As long as they ask before they call it’s no problem. If they call without writing first it’s annoying
Yep, I’m the senior member of my team at work and I have to train a lot of newbies. When my supervisor tells me to start my training I message the person on teams to make sure their ready, then call them, then either share my screen or have them share their screen.
I work in international freight and every shipment is different, it would take 30 minutes to type out everything they need to know for every individual shipment. If I can show them while talking about each aspect it only takes 2 or 3 minutes per shipment.
And I’m someone who hates talking on the phone and screen sharing, but sometimes it’s just what you have to do to get the job done efficiently.
My manager is like this. I don’t know how to him it’s easier to talk about something technical over the phone rather than in chat or email. When talking to people about IT crap, you have to sugar coat and use euphemisms which I don’t have to do as much in email and the benefit with email is I can convey literally what I’m trying to do. My manager just doesn’t want to fucking ready my emails.
Yeah, why would anyone want to have a two minute phone conversation when they could exchange the same amount of information over 20 emails across three days?
Honestly: the medium does not matter all that much imho. The one person in the conversation not being able to get their shit together is the problem. If everyone involved can communicate what they want to get done by when and what i have to do with it, im fine with a phonecall. Im even willing to summarize it via text afterwards if i don’t have to be the fucking rubber ducky again. Ugh.
Or like, you know, focus for a second and read the message instead of seeing text and responding only to first sentence, if not just the title xD
At work this request means “I’m going to ramble for 45 minutes because I don’t understand it enough to form a question”.
This is exactly what my dad does. “It’s easier” means “I can’t be bothered to spend five minutes figuring out what the question I really want to ask is, and write it out in a ten word text. So instead I’ll ramble for fifteen minutes and hope you figure it out for me.”
When people say “it’s easier” they mean for them, not you.
Y’all don’t talk?
I used to be like this, then realize when I die, all these moments will just be erased to history, so I’m like, whatever man. Can’t escape it, banking problems, job interview calls, etc…
But online multiplay game voice chat? Nah fuck that, aint touching that radioactive shit, I aint playing multiplayer if that’s a requirement. I’ll die on this hill.
If you have a male sounding voice and you are open and friendly and communicate well, gaming voice chats can be a good experience, depending on the game. Mostly they aren’t, though.
I have a male voice and I communicate well but I’m not friendly and fuck voice chats for multiplayer games. Fuck that shit to hell.
I think I’m gonna get a lot of people screaming at me for poor aim.
Honestly today I’m mostly thinking “I have other shit to worry about, like the pie in the oven”. Ain’t nobody got time for worrying about phone calls
The hell is this comment section? Is every lemmy user some kind of IT person? There is place for text, there is place for calls, and there is even place for actual presence, all depending on actual problem and yours and other person’s understanding of it and ability to articulate through different mediums.
I think an abnormally large portion of lemmings are in IT
Sometimes it really is much easier though.
Some of my friends insist on calling. Apparently they’re used to doing VIDEO calls. Like guys, please, have some mercy.
VIDEO calls
One of the bigger reasons I don’t want an iPhone. I’d much rather talk than text as it usually is quicker, but I hate video calls.
“Please leave a message at the blank screen.”
Fuck no
I need traceable communications
Send me an email, I don’t want to discuss potentially non contract and policy approved things over a medium that won’t record it
People, keep your communications traceable at all times
