(no subject)

[mrissa]

Isn't the internet great? Instantaneous communication!

You know what? The instantaneous part is optional. You do not actually have to reply to things the moment you read them -- either on websites or in e-mail. And more to the point, I don't have to, either. This is apparently a point I need to make as an lj policy: I do not guarantee that I will read my e-mail or my lj comments within a given time-frame, and if I do, I do not guarantee that I will respond right away.

And if I do not respond right away, it doesn't mean that I love you, hate you, agree with you, disagree with you...etc. etc. until you get the point. It means that I'm taking awhile to see if I have something to say on the subject and, if so, what it is and how I'm going to say it. It may mean that, while I know what I think and even how to phrase it, I feel more like doing other things. I am allowed to feel more like doing other things.

Don't get me wrong: I enjoy a lot of lj interactions, and I enjoy e-mail. But I also enjoy getting enough sleep at night, going for a walk, reading a book or watching a movie without popping upstairs every five minutes, spending time with the other mammals in my life. I'll bet you do, too, and I give you a blanket permission: even in the midst of a big discussion, whether it's heated or not, you may step away from the computer and continue with the rest of your life.

Comments

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

*Lots* of people think the phone is intrusive. It even featured prominently in the "workspace invaders" t-shirt (stuff descending like in space invaders, but each icon representing some interruption; the phone is the one I remember...).

If answering the phone is optional, then it becomes useless for the actually urgent situations (or anything else; I don't answer when you call, you don't answer when I call...). So people should only call when it *is* urgent.

[redbird]

People should be prepared to assume that the person they're calling is screening (or briefly unavailable) and start talking to the machine. Most of us can say "Hi, it's Vicki, I'm just calling to chat," "Hi, it's Vicki, I bought extra corn/tuna/chocolate cake, would you like to come over this evening and help me eat it/I'm having a party on the 13th, I hope you can make it," or "It's Vicki, thus-and-such urgent is happening, I need to talk to you, please call me at $number or $mobile_number, even if you get this at 3 a.m."

The people I'd call with any of those messages could handle them accordingly, based on whether they were busy, how soon they got the message if they weren't screening calls, and what mood they were in. (If I wasn't going to go help someone eat extra tuna steaks, I might not bother to call back and say so; if I got the message at 11:00 that night, I almost certainly wouldn't.)

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

The "even if you get this at 3 a.m." tag is very important, to my way of thinking. "Call me if you get a chance" and "call me if you get this in time" are very different from "please call me no matter what time it is."