The Worst
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Not sure if it is the worst thing in communication, but a person has to be organized and disciplined to keep it in control.
I remember a class I took that emphasized always trying to move "up" the communication chain
If you are going to send a letter
Can you email? Phone? See them in person?If you are going to send an email
Can you phone? See them in person?If you are going to phone
Can you see them in person? -
I was thinking about this earlier, but forgot to reply.
The ability to text has been revolutionary, imo. It's the immediacy of a message, but with the recipient's ability to respond at a later time.
Better than a phone call, faster than email.
I'm constantly texting to my kids, and if it's urgent, I pick up the phone and (gasp) call them.
Email is great, but it doesn't have the immediacy of communication that's sometimes required, and doesn't have the flexibility that texting offers. After all, you might not check your mail for hours, or even days (Yeah, Mrs. George, I'm looking at YOU).
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I despise email. It's all but ruined my job over the last 20 years or so. We used to communicate by telephone (primarily) and where writing was needed, by letter or fax. Writing a fax took actual effort, so you didn't end up with gazillions of them every day, and you weren't expected to reply within 10 minutes.
One of the good things about the pandemic for me has been the push towards video calls rather than those awful extended email correspondences. The problem is they don't really work when lots of people are involved, but then again, not much does.
