Chapter $7$ Writing Assignment Av

To: Brian Drummond

brian.drummond@gmail.com

From: Nadya DeAlba

Nadya.dealba@techsolutions.com

Subject: Your Request

Brian,

Thanks for $($change to I appreciate$)$ this opportunity to make a contribution to your upcoming blog for Online Voices. You ask that I confine my remarks to five main and important points. Which I will try to do$.$ However, I could share many more annoying habits that create tension in the workplace. They interrupt workflow, reduce productivity, and lead to stress. Here's my top five annoying tech habits that drive co$-$workers crazy. I have observed these in our open office. The first has to do with cc abuse. Todays e$-$mail programs make it to easy to copy people who may be unrelated to the discussion. Before clicking the cc field, writers should ask themselves whether it's critical to ask all receivers specific questions such as who wants the vegan or the barbecue lunch. Another annoying habit is what I call "radio silence." This occurs when receivers fail to respond to e$-$mails within $24$ hours. It's not that I expect responses to every Slack message, tweet, DM$,$ text message, voice mail, or Facebook post. As a writer, however, it is annoying when important e$-$mail messages are ignored.

One of my co$-$workers complains about notification overload. Offices today are awash with chirps, dings, and rings of countless devices that are allowed to ring and echo through the sweeping open space. The constant ding, ding, dinging is not only annoying to the intended recipients. But also to nearby colleagues.

Another annoying habit has to do with jumbled threads. When writers do not observe the conventions of threading their comments on Slack or e$-$mail. The structure of the conversation becomes garbled. This really annoying behavior is one of the many tech irritants that aggravate co$-$workers.

A final irritant is channel hopping. I've heard a lot of complaining about co$-$workers who pursue the recipient from channel to channel, following an e$-$mail with repeated Slack messages or a text. It would be advantageous if people let there co$-$workers know their preferred method of staying in touch.