Conference 7.286::digital

    My approach:
    
    I was cleaning out my mail file and came across your message, sorry for
    the delay in responding etc... I then include a copy of the errant
    message.
    
    Dave

Here's a new service just announced by Nmail Engineering, Inc.

1.  Send $5 to me in the internal mail.  Let me know the
    name (node::user) of your correspondent.

2.  Tell your correspondent that you replied by Nmail 4 months
    ago, and the %^!@ mail daemon must have eaten your message.

Note: you are required to complete step 1 for every such mail
message, otherwise I'll consider that you are impugning my
reputation as a purveyor of fine hacks.

Note also: if the correspondent is "MU::PORTER", the price
goes up to $50.

    re: .0, .1
    
    I also reply, with an apology for the delay.  Sometimes I give an
    excuse ("the cluster was down for two days") sometimes I don't.
    
    I've never had a correspondent berate me for my tardiness, but that
    wasn't really the point of 1311.0.  1311.0 expressed concern about
    the feelings of the person who misplaced the mail, not of the person
    who receives the late reply.  All I can say is that it doesn't bother
    me.
        John Sauter

    
     Just be open and honest. Why make excuses?
    
    -Mike Z.

	Yes .... it happens to us all. At least you get to the stuff 
	eventually.  I have heard some people say they delete messages, 
	figuring that, if it's important, the sender will come back 
	to them.  I like your approach better.  Not a whole *lot* 
	better, but ..... :-)

	Here's a technique you could try.  For a message you *really* 
	mean to answer, don't file it away in that folder you never 
	look at - FO it to yourself (i.e. file it in your NEWMAIL) 
	with a Subject like "ANSWER JIM'S MAIL TODAY OR AT LEAST CALL 
	THE POOR SUCKER!"

	Let me know if it works for you?

	rgds  Jim

re: 1311.0             Responding to long-forgotten mail              2 replies
>--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>Um, what would you do?

I would answer it, quickly. DEC people don't turn over that much.

>this mail folder. Sometimes, I never seem to get back to processing the
>messages. So, um, sometimes I have unanswered mail dating back more than 4
>months ago in this folder.


>
>I feel very sorry about the situation. It happens from time to time because
>I am a single-minded person with lots of work and when I am working toward a
>deadline I seem to focus on one thing and sorta forget that there are other
>things pending.

>What is the Digital etiquette for these situations? I want to do the right
>thing.

It is my opinion, based on several events I both planned and had
"committed" invitees, that there is no DEC Etiquette. DEC people, in
the Main, as a group, seem to feel no compulsion to honor
committments or make a call explaining why they will not appear. 

There are many people within DEC, that routinely ignore mail messages
unless they personally expect to get something out of it. 

It is now part of my strategy that if someone says "they'll get back
to me", I nail them for a time and date; and if unable to get one, I
know "they're only kidding" .. 

That being said, and many people feeling infuriated: Good ! Maybe
you'll get back to me now !  ;^)

With that side of the road being covered, DEC is the first and only
company that has such an open communication network, and it makes
doing business with those who take their job committments seriously,
a real pleasure to do business with them. 

I have personally been able to (when the need arises) to take a six
week process and shrink down to a few days, when push comes to shove,
and the other folks understand the need to do so. 

DEC has become a stereoptypical buraucracy, with a  twist. Unlike a
governmental or political buraucracy, DEC emloyees have the "right"
to circumvent the normal process, if it is necessary to do so, and
most managers will back them up (unlkess of course the manager is
looking for to fire a few selected people to reduce headcount). 



>How do you react to this when you are the person waiting for the
reply? 

If the information is still needed, I thank them, however belatedly,
and respond as needed. 

-BobE

Isn't interesting so many people have so much time to write about
how bad DEC can be, as a work environment ? ;^)

	This happens to me from time to time as well. What I sometimes
	do is flag the mail message with Tickler. This is a feature
	of DECmail-11 (aka DECmail/RSTS) that I'd be lost without. It
	is one of the things that keeps me from using VMSmail. With a
	tickle date associated with a mail message it becomes NEW on that
	date. This helps me get back to things later.

	If I don't remember to do this I generally just apologize,
	plead overwork (generally truthfully) and answer the mail. If
	the mail is directly work related I usually try very hard to
	answer right away so people are usually pretty understanding
	about the rest.

			Alfred

RE: .0 

	If you are really serious about answering all of those old mail 
messages then why not stop wasting time reading notes and answer your mail.

    I have a simple solution for you that's sure to work.  If you enter the
    following while in MAIL, you will never again have to worry about
    people wondering why you haven't gotten back to them.
    
    	MAIL>  SET FORWARD "Richard Brunner doesn't answer MAIL"
    
    Then, whenever anybody tries to send you MAIL, they will get a message
    back saying:
    
    	$ %ERROR PARSING RICHARD BRUNNER DOESN'T ANSWER MAIL
    
    Of course, you won't get any MAIL either, but at least you won't have
    to be embarrassed about it.  ;-)
    

    Alternative and more serious suggestion: use DELIVER to auto-answer
    that you're busy,and if you don't reply within a week or so, please
    remail you.
    
    
    /andy/

re: .8

>RE: .0 
>
>	If you are really serious about answering all of those old mail 
>messages then why not stop wasting time reading notes and answer your mail.

I guess because I only read notes when I am feeling brain dead. Most of my
mail is all technical stuff needing more thought... :-) :-)

I appreciate all the advice. I think I'll try a variation of .9 and see if
anyone notices.

thanks.

    This is a problem that our customers may share, although few of them do
    as much networking mail as we do at DEC, from what I understand.
    
    It happens to me in several ways - sometimes I can't answer the message
    right away without some data I need to dig up, other times I'm swamped
    and can't answer it right away, and other times I'm reading mail while
    in a class and have such terrible response time that there is no point
    in trying to respond via set host.
    
    When I'm organized, I have folders called "TODO" and "URGENT".  I would
    really like it if I could have my login.com somehow remind me that
    there are 6 messages in TODO and 3 in URGENT.  I can't think of how to
    program something like this, is it possible?
    
    I try to run through those folders a couple of times a day.
    
    But things still get buried in the MAIL folder, and the mail folder
    piles up messages at a truly alarming rate.  It's easy for me to
    generate hundreds in a week.  I try to delete 50-100 per day.  If I
    file in folders the ones that I just need to keep around for a few
    days, they stay around way too long.
    
    I like VMSmail, and would love more support with these issues.
    
    And when I find old mail messages I meant to answer, I try to respond
    to the person honestly and tell them what happened.  I also assume that
    if it's really important to them, they will have the good sense to bug
    me again.  
    
    Holly

    Easy stuff.  Use callable-MAIL (finally documented - V5.4 release
    notes?) to write a little program to query the folder of your
    choice.

    About not forgetting mails you need to respond to...

    Before being able to MARK VMSmail messages (pre 5.x), I borrowed someone
    else's technique to file messages needing action or reply in a folder
    beginning with a "." -- a directory of those would give me a to-do list.

    With version 5.x, my to-do list command file also looks through all my
    VAXmail folders, finds all MARKed messages, and prints the list.

    (Also, the procedure does a self-mail for things which I want to remind
    myself to do, like, "$ TODO "Christmas Party, 12/13", which I just mark
    and file.)

    I'd be glad to post it. Its help follows...

    /Peters
    ---

TODO LIST

   Search to-do folders in VAXMAIL (leading punctuation in folder name);
   Search standard folders in VAXMAIL looking for MARKed messages (V5 feature);
   Produce dated master to-do list in SYS$LOGIN:TODO.LIS. Long subject fields
     are wrapped on output.
   [ V4 MAIL DIR/FOLDER shows only first 40 subject field characters.      ]
   [ Temporary files created/deleted in SYS$SCRATCH: with .TMP extensions. ]

TODO

   TYPE SYS$LOGIN:TODO.LIS.

TODO arg1 [ arg2... arg8 ]

   Single or multiple arguments form subject of subject-only mail message to
     yourself.
   Multiple arguments are concatenated and lower-cased.