Ron Lindeboom
2
COW Coins
Forum Replies Created
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Wow, I didn’t know that bullshit was such an egregious bit of filth. I bought my first car courtesy of it, selling manure from the dairy I grew up on at 5 bags for $1 to all the housing tracts that grew up around us and eventually pushed us out of business. Bought my first house from the money I saved from manure sales, as well. Me and bullshit, as well as cowshit, go back a long way.
The point you missed is that you were feeding bull to the board and weren’t listening to anyone else’s point but your own.
You may think that the back-pedaling you did is what you were saying but for most of your initial posts, they were all about how easy email is and how it takes no time.
I tried showing you on a few occasions a picture of a workday that was quite unlike your own. You didn’t like it and came back with the same point — that is when I called it bullshit.
If that is more than you can bare, I would get rid of cable TV, quit going to the movies, burn your CDs and music, and get out of this business.
Ron Lindeboom
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[David See] “The ignoring of emails – those requiring simple yes/no answers, or answers including minor details – turns them from a simple, effective way of communicating into an ineffective one.”
This was not what you said in the beginning, David.What you said was that it takes ten seconds to answer.
To that I said: Bullshit. (Or a whole bunch of other words that basically said the same thing. Though that word works well to encapsulate all of the retorts that I have used in my vain attempt to try to show a stubborn unlistening unyeilding guy — whose REAL POINT was that everyone should work as he does, and it’s clear at least that you measure it that way — that not all of us work like you do.)
I use email all the time. I use it well.
I JUST DO NOT USE IT ON YOUR SCHEDULE.
That was your initial and repeated point.
I do not care if you, Mark Raudonis, and ten or twenty other people all stand up, wrap arms, sing Kum Bai Yah together, and all agree that email takes ten seconds.
Bullshit.
You better figure out that the world is full of all kinds of people and they do not all work the same.
THAT WAS MY POINT for those too unlistening to discern it.
As I said and you seem unable of comprehending, I get so much email in a day that were I to let it control my day by responding as you do, I would do little else. I wouldn’t get anything on my schedule done and I would be perpetually on everyone else’s schedule of things they want from me and want answers to, etc., etc.
No thanks.
I will respond to my email in the morning and in the evening and will check it a few times during the day. IF YOU OR YOUR CAUSE ARE IMPORTANT enough to warrant an exception, I may even write you during the day. But don’t hold your breath.
Oh, and if you disagree with me. That is quite okay. If you think me rude, that too is quite okay with me. I find your assertion that email takes ten seconds to be so all-inclusive and ignoring of so many other situations that your belief takes me back to Shakespeare who said: “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”
Sometimes I answer emails in ten seconds or less. But I don’t make it my religion as you seem to wish to do.
Ron Lindeboom
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Mark,
I never said that email could not be more effective than a phone call. There are times it is — there are also times it isn’t, such as in what I described about working with Abraham. If I used email in that case, I’d be spending 8 to 10 times the amount of time and effort to get to the same place. Not productive.
BUT THE REAL ISSUE TO ME is that David See seems to think that everyone works like him and he makes a blanket statement that email takes ten seconds or so to reply to. (If you work as he does, I am sure the answer would be yes. I don’t. I don’t plan to. You guys have no freakin’ idea how much mail some of us get in a day.)
If you think that also, then I have to say that I thought that you had been in business long enough to know better, Mark. I think you may have recontacted your inner-child.
;o)
Oh and if you tried to throw some crap on me in an email Mark that cost me some money because I didn’t reply to you in some arbitrary amount of time that is to me unrealistic, it would be the last time you did business with me, mon ami.
Have fun,
Ron Lindeboom
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What I find COMPLETELY aggravating about email as a means of communication is the back-and-forth refining of the thought to get to the same place that I can do in a few minutes on the phone.
I find that many people approach things without much mental “pre-thought” and conceptualization of what they want. The refining process takes too much time.
I work with our web engineer a lot. He and I get on the phone and do in an hour or less what would take us a day or two using email, were we to have to go back and forth kicking the idea until both of us understood exactly what was being said and what was the answer.
Your blind belief in the idea that all communication takes but a single ten second phrase or two makes me scratch my head and wonder what you really achieve or what your standard must be. If that is acceptable to you, so be it. But as for me, ten second quickies were never my style. I’m built for comfort, not for speed.
Oh, and I NEVER write a single sentence if I can help it.
Ron Lindeboom
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[David See] “I am completely aware that others have commitments. What I hate is people REGULARLY refusing to respond to direct questions.”
What I hate is people that are too lazy and cheap to pick up a phone.
As I said in my responses, you would hate to correspond with me as I would never respond instantly and your “ten second rule” would die of neglect in my care.
Pick up a phone. You think people like me are lazy and rude? I think that people that think that people are somehow morally obligated to answer an email are drinking their own Kool-Aid.
You don’t know what’s happening in my day, just as I don’t know what’s happening in yours.
I answer my own phone for good reason and even though I could have a secretary, I don’t use one.
Need an answer? Call.
Send me an email instead? I hope you won’t hold your breath waiting for an answer.
Some people love texting and emails. I am not one of them.
As the song said long ago: different strokes, for different folks.
Ron Lindeboom
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And a little postscript thought on my reply to Bob Zelin:
As you point out, Bob, when people get answers and do not reply and do not let you know what worked or didn’t — or even say thanks in the slightest — I don’t bother with them next time. It’s called “crapping in your own nest.”
When you do that, nobody wants to hang around.
;o)
Sadly, it is that Human Nature Thingieâ„¢ again.
Have fun, Bob.
Ron Lindeboom
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[David See] “It takes ten seconds and they know I have the info.”
This is a FUNDAMENTAL FLAW in your logic. You assume everyone works as you do or is as free in time as you are.
Me, I do email in the morning and at night. The rest of the day, I ignore it for the most part. If I didn’t, I’d get little done.
What to you is ten seconds, is to me a major disruption of my workflow (breaking up my day and destroying the focus and rhythm that I achieve when I am in a work groove) and if you worked with me, you’d either get used to morning or evening emails — or you wouldn’t.
But either way, I find the whole concept of ten second expectations almost laughable.
You need to understand that not everyone is waiting around for your emails.
Ron Lindeboom
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[Bob Zelin] “Let’s relate this to Creative Cow. A guy (many guys at many forums) asks a question like this “oh my God, nothing is working, I have to get this job out in 1 hour, can someone PLEASE help me” – and a barrage of responses are sent to him, everyone asking “ok, let me know if that worked” – or – “if it doesn’t work, tell me exactly what you see”. And you hear nothing back.”
What they really wanted was for someone — likely you, Bob — to take their private call and hold their hand on the phone and tell them exactly what to do.
It’s why when people call me for help, I point them to the forums and do not give them the answer on the phone.
I know leaders that do this and they get call after call and they spend hour upon hour doing it.
To quote Bob Zelin, I think that is too stupid for words.
Ron Lindeboom
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[Ned Miller] “Lastly, and perhaps this should be the name of this forum, we all must remember this: YOU CAN NEVER WIN AN ARGUMENT WITH A CLIENT, even when they’re wrong they’re right.”
Boy, this is my day for disagreeing, I guess.
😉
The next column that I wrote for the September/October issue of Creative COW Magazine addresses this very topic — and it is one on which I most emphatically disagree.
At WalMart or at Nordstroms, the customer is always right. In a service business such as ours wherein you and the client interact for days, weeks, or sometimes even months on a project — as opposed to the mere minutes of a retail transaction — the customer is not always right. My customers know that I never claim to be infallible. When they claim that, it is my moral obligation to bring them to a balanced understanding wherein we can forge a respectable and honorable relationship. When someone insists they are right when they know in their heart of hearts that they are being a bully and are full of crap, I walk ’em.
I once handed a guy all his tapes and his artwork and told him to get lost. He asked for my work. I told him he was getting no bill and so he was entitled to none of my work. Period. He knew I meant it.
Ultimate Takeaway Close, kids.
Guess who lost?
They wanted their stuff and did not want to start from zero again. They calmed down and admitted their stress got the best of them. We never had to have that conversation again.
My new column will be out in a few weeks. It is an expansion on the thoughts that I began in Clients or Grinders: The Choice Is Yours.
If you believe that the customer is always right, you may as well paint a bulls-eye on your forehead if you work in a service trade like ours.
If you demand respect, you will get it. If you command respect, you better give it. But if you are going to roll-over every time that a client pushes you around, then you may as well make up your mind now that you need to get your named changed on your driver’s license…to Patsy.
In closing, in principle you are right, Ned. But in healthy relationships there is a balanced give and take. If one person is doing all the giving while one does all the taking, that never ends well. Real clients understand this and are pragmatists and realists. The “bully spirits” are not worth the bother, and remember that they respect a take-away close better than any other tactic that I know, at least in my experience.
Ron Lindeboom
creativecow.net -
[David See] “In this day and age of instant, simple communication such as email or SMS messaging between mobile phones (cellphones), I get so frustrated when particular clients or contacts (and it seems to be the same ones all the time) refuse to respond to a question or a message containing information regarding a project we are working on for them. Or even just messages between business associates.”
Let me play Devil’s Advocate on this one: Whereas many probably feel the way you do, I don’t. There is nothing “instant” about email or SMS to me. I am VERY busy and I do my best to answer people. But if I answered every email that I get as I get them, I’d be doing little else.
Just because someone writes or texts me, does not mean that I am automatically obligated to drop everything and answer them.
Right now, today, I have 817 unopened emails. NONE are older than a few days. I hope to get to them this weekend when things slow down. Will I answer them all? Hardly. In fact, I will only answer a few.
Some are from clients and they will get an answer. Some are from people who I know and work with here in the COW and they will get an answer. But those who wrote me asking questions that they don’t want to ask on the forums because it will make them look stupid (in their opinion), they can expect neither an answer or the courtesy of me telling them why I am ignoring them.
The ones who do not bother with a salutation nor an ending comment of thanks or to even bother using their name, they will get nothing from me. Those that write me by name and at least thank me, will get an explanation as to why I point them to the forums and will not answer privately.
Like Chris Blair stated, I too have had people email me every few minutes demanding an answer. These ones will learn that after they do that, I will NOT answer and will likely use caller ID to send them to answering machine limbo.
I cannot think of anyone who pays me enough to make my life stressful and a nightmare. I also cannot think of anyone who is entitled to write or call me demanding an answer and not using such magic words as please and thank you. If they think they are so damned important that they needn’t bother with such cursory and unnecessary niceties as simple courtesy, they will find out quicklyt that I do not place their bloated sense of self-importance high on my list of priorities.
BUT…
When people write me and are courteous and congenial, they are the ones I bother with — as I have time.
An email in my inbox or to my cellphone does not automatically obligate me to drop everything to answer you.
You may work differently. I am not about to. Not with the huge amount of business that we do, and the exorbitant amount of mail we get.
My friends and clients know that the best way to contact me is to pick up the phone. That is way faster and gets more done than emails back and forth, again and again, getting issues finaled and resolved. No thanks, I have better things to do.
Ron Lindeboom