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010 - Read, File, Delete, or Ignore: Email Management | Monique Burkley and Maggie Guzman [Feature Topic]
3 Plays3 years ago
In the fast pace world of campus housing we have to be effective at communicating through a variety of formats to reach our audiences. One of those formats, is email. This month we are joined by Monique Burkley (UT Arlington) and Maggie Guzman (Texas A&M) to talk about how they manage their email. We start by talking about how many total email and how many unread emails we have in our inboxes, then promptly move towards email etiquette and departmental cultures/expectations for email. Throughout the episode there are many small scale strategies for effective email management. Our guests reveal there is no single right way to manage the never-ending pile in our inboxes.
Be Sure to Thank Our Guests!
Seeking professional advice? Fill out this anonymous form and a panel of housing staff will give you their take on your situation on an upcoming podcast.
Transcript forthcoming.
Recommended![025 - Fun Topics from the ACUHO-I Community Forum | Joel Gatti [Feature Topic] image](https://media.zencastr.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=112,quality=85/image-files/605db9539a00e40074826685/733e7e3d-9d73-4dce-9fd9-65d29d14b4dd.)
Transcript
Introduction and Episode Goals
00:00:00
Speaker
I'm JC Stoner and this is the Swakuho Podcast.
00:00:03
Speaker
This month's episode focuses on an unfortunate cornerstone of the housing profession, email management.
00:00:10
Speaker
I know it doesn't sound like the most glamorous of topics, but trust me, this episode is going to be packed with tangible takeaways regardless of if your inbox has less than 10 or more than 10,000 emails.
00:00:22
Speaker
Along the way, we're going to talk about default sign-offs and salutations, so-called email etiquette, copying other people's bosses on emails, and plenty of other nuances associated with grinding away at the keyboard.
Technical Challenges and Production Team
00:00:34
Speaker
Before we begin, I do have to forewarn listeners that just like in episode three,
00:00:38
Speaker
We did have some technical difficulties when doing the original recording such that we had to re-record the first 20 to 30 minutes.
00:00:45
Speaker
So I apologize in advance if there were some repeat comments or disjointed moments.
00:00:50
Speaker
I'm also excited to announce the podcast has its first volunteer.
00:00:54
Speaker
Christian Robinson from the University of Arkansas provided some production responsibilities for this episode, including editing the track you are now listening to.
00:01:03
Speaker
Christian didn't know that honing his editing skills was going to involve joining together two different recordings.
00:01:08
Speaker
but he stuck with it through thick and thin.
00:01:11
Speaker
Thank you, Christian, for stepping up and providing service to your association and your region.
Guest Introductions and Backgrounds
00:01:17
Speaker
Our first guest is Monique Berkeley, Residence Director at the University of Texas at Arlington.
00:01:22
Speaker
Monique is originally from Dallas, Texas, and is a first-generation graduate who received her Bachelor of Science in Kinesiology and Sports Studies from Texas A&M University Commerce.
00:01:32
Speaker
She obtained her Master's of Education in Higher Education Administration at the University of Texas at San Antonio.
00:01:38
Speaker
She enjoys hiking, painting, crafting, socializing, and spending time with family and friends.
00:01:46
Speaker
She is also a dog mom to her pug, Rosemary.
00:01:50
Speaker
Monique, welcome to the show.
00:01:52
Speaker
Hi, thanks for having me, and thanks for joining us today.
00:01:56
Speaker
Our second guest is Maggie Guzman, who is the Assistant Director for Risk Management at Texas A&M University.
00:02:03
Speaker
In this role, Maggie oversees risk management, staff training, and respect and engagement initiatives.
00:02:10
Speaker
She has been involved with Swakuho for 20 years and considers this her professional home.
00:02:15
Speaker
When not driving her two kids to their various activities, she enjoys watching historical dramas, all things Marvel, and reading historical fiction.
Email Management Practices
00:02:25
Speaker
Maggie, welcome to the show.
00:02:27
Speaker
Thanks, JC.
00:02:28
Speaker
It's good to be here.
00:02:30
Speaker
So first things first, how many emails do you have in your inbox right now?
00:02:35
Speaker
Not in folders, just in your inbox.
00:02:38
Speaker
Okay, JC, are you ready?
00:02:41
Speaker
I have 50,153 in my inbox, and 23 of those are unread.
00:02:49
Speaker
And just to be clear, that was 50,000, not 15,000.
00:02:54
Speaker
Correct.
00:02:54
Speaker
Five zero.
00:02:56
Speaker
Okay.
00:02:56
Speaker
I mean, once we hit orders of magnitude, I don't think an additional zero really matters.
00:03:00
Speaker
But okay, there we go.
00:03:02
Speaker
Thanks, Maggie.
00:03:03
Speaker
Yeah.
00:03:04
Speaker
Monique?
00:03:05
Speaker
I have 6,384 emails in my inbox and only two are unread.
00:03:08
Speaker
Ooh.
00:03:13
Speaker
That's pretty impressive.
00:03:15
Speaker
And since I asked you two to share, I of course have to share mine.
00:03:19
Speaker
I have 12,386 total, of which 4,679 of them are unread.
00:03:29
Speaker
Oh, that's great, Jason.
00:03:31
Speaker
And yet here I am still employed.
00:03:33
Speaker
So I'm sure all of those are on purpose.
00:03:36
Speaker
So you go back.
00:03:37
Speaker
It's like your to do list, right?
00:03:39
Speaker
Is that what you're right?
Coping with Email Anxiety
00:03:40
Speaker
I've gotten really good at reading subject lines and knowing whether or not they need my attention or not.
00:03:45
Speaker
Look, that is a real skill.
00:03:46
Speaker
That is an undervalued skill for sure.
00:03:50
Speaker
Or I just think I have enough capital that if one of those comes back to haunt me, I can be like, well, it happens to the best of us.
00:03:56
Speaker
Missed an email.
00:03:57
Speaker
Yeah.
00:03:58
Speaker
It was closing.
00:03:58
Speaker
Sorry.
00:03:59
Speaker
Yes.
00:04:00
Speaker
Right.
00:04:01
Speaker
But for listeners out there, it's a pretty simple thing.
00:04:05
Speaker
If you didn't know how to toggle into it, you can toggle between these numbers.
00:04:08
Speaker
If you use Outlook, just right click your inbox and select properties, then toggle between show number of unread items, which I think is the default, and then show total number of items.
00:04:18
Speaker
So.
00:04:19
Speaker
If you want to know how many total you got, you can join the club.
00:04:23
Speaker
So obviously the three of us have a fairly high number, which I would consider society might judge us based on those.
00:04:30
Speaker
But do either of you ever get anxiety with your email volume?
00:04:35
Speaker
I do not.
00:04:37
Speaker
My email does not bother me at all.
00:04:39
Speaker
I've always been a high volume email kind of girl, I guess.
00:04:43
Speaker
Higher now, obviously, than I was whenever I was a new professional.
00:04:45
Speaker
But no, I do not lose any sleep or have any anxiety over my email.
00:04:50
Speaker
I'm like the opposite.
00:04:52
Speaker
Yes, I like to have my inbox on zero because I typically keep it in the unread view and not on the total number.
00:04:59
Speaker
Just because that lowest number will freak me out.
00:05:01
Speaker
But I use the inbox alert number to help me sort through my day.
00:05:07
Speaker
So I know if I have four in-action items, I know I have four things to do.
00:05:11
Speaker
So I like to keep that down at zero because that tells me that I have nothing to do.
00:05:16
Speaker
So it has to be low or I'm going to be freaking out about what I need to do or what I missed.
Communication Preferences: Email vs. Meetings
00:05:21
Speaker
And Maggie, did you experience anxiety earlier on in your career?
00:05:24
Speaker
Is that something that you've become accustomed to?
00:05:28
Speaker
You know, I honestly don't remember, but I don't think so.
00:05:31
Speaker
I am a pretty chill person, I guess, and don't really experience a lot of anxiety over many things.
00:05:38
Speaker
So no, I don't remember that.
00:05:39
Speaker
I do remember when I first started at A&M being very overwhelmed with the volume of email.
00:05:45
Speaker
It was very different from when I was at Sam Houston.
00:05:48
Speaker
But in a large department, it's just kind of par for the course, I think, when you've got a bunch of different units and a bunch of people spread out everywhere.
00:05:55
Speaker
So it was something that I remember being warned about when I applied to work there.
00:06:02
Speaker
Like, we have a lot of email.
00:06:04
Speaker
You need to make sure that you're administratively savvy.
00:06:06
Speaker
And we try to kind of warn people about that, too, as we're hiring them.
00:06:10
Speaker
But no, I don't distinctly remember experiencing a lot of anxiety over it.
00:06:15
Speaker
Well, I imagine with your position also with risk management, you probably get copied on a lot of emails just from a need-to-know basis.
00:06:23
Speaker
I do.
00:06:24
Speaker
I do.
00:06:25
Speaker
I counted one time and I was on an email thread that I'm not even joking you, was 32 messages long.
00:06:34
Speaker
Jeez.
00:06:35
Speaker
Just back and forth and so many people were contributing to the conversation.
00:06:41
Speaker
And, you know, like...
00:06:42
Speaker
I could have deleted all of them and just saved the last one with the whole thread, but I didn't.
00:06:49
Speaker
So yeah, that does happen quite a bit for me.
00:06:51
Speaker
I'm just imagining the moment in your day and what must have been going on where you were like, I'm going to count how many emails are on this thread.
00:06:59
Speaker
I think that I was probably having a conversation with someone else on the thread about how absurd it had gotten and how there's a point where you stop emailing and you just call a meeting, right?
00:07:10
Speaker
I think that was probably what some of that conversation was about.
00:07:13
Speaker
But yeah, just to see, I did.
00:07:16
Speaker
I counted 32.
00:07:17
Speaker
Well, and I also love the fact that how many times have we heard people say, why did we meet about this?
00:07:22
Speaker
It could have been an email.
00:07:23
Speaker
And now here Maggie Guzman is saying, why
Email Volume and Professional Importance
00:07:27
Speaker
are we emailing?
00:07:27
Speaker
We should have a meeting.
00:07:29
Speaker
Yes, because some things could be just so much faster with a phone call or just a quick hallway meeting.
00:07:36
Speaker
You know what I mean?
00:07:37
Speaker
Particularly if it's like if you and I are going to sit here and email back and forth, JC, I know that you're available to some extent.
00:07:45
Speaker
I may as well just pick up the phone and call you at that point.
00:07:48
Speaker
Well, unless I'm emailing while I'm in a meeting with somebody else.
00:07:51
Speaker
True, true, which these days does happen.
00:07:55
Speaker
So Monique, do you anticipate the anxiety you expressed going down as you advance in your career?
00:08:00
Speaker
Because you're a fairly young professional.
00:08:02
Speaker
I can already see the improvement in my email management skills.
00:08:06
Speaker
And now I've learned to let things lie and like, oh, that can wait.
00:08:11
Speaker
So I'm not as anxious with email number as I was when I started back in July.
00:08:16
Speaker
So now I'm like,
00:08:18
Speaker
I've adopted like if they really need me, if it's an emergency, I'm sure someone will call me and they wouldn't wait for me to see an email, especially if it doesn't have like the high important notification, like the little red exclamation point.
00:08:31
Speaker
So I can see myself in like even next year, just not even caring.
00:08:35
Speaker
I mean, I agree with that because something that I kind of talk, have been talking a lot to people about recently is expectations management.
00:08:42
Speaker
And so I feel like the people, and I know many of them,
00:08:46
Speaker
who are compelled to reply to the email within two minutes of receiving it are not always managing the other people's expectations of them very well, because we, we train people on what to expect from us.
00:08:59
Speaker
And so, you know, if you are the person who's constantly on the phone, on the email, replying to things within two minutes, people come to expect that.
00:09:07
Speaker
And then when you don't do that and you reply within two hours or heaven forbid a whole business day, you're,
00:09:14
Speaker
People are like, what's wrong with you?
00:09:16
Speaker
You know what I mean?
00:09:17
Speaker
So some of that is I think we bring some of that stress on ourselves by not managing that expectation very well.
00:09:23
Speaker
Yeah, I sometimes actually, even if I can immediately respond, I will sometimes sit on it for a few hours just to like, not, I'm like, you don't deserve an email from me right away.
00:09:32
Speaker
I'm ready to go.
00:09:33
Speaker
And I'll delay send emails all the time, like for a little bit later, just because I don't want to train people that I know from my perception, how they will feel that it is, oh, good.
00:09:45
Speaker
He's always responding.
00:09:46
Speaker
Like, no, I've got other priorities than you.
Email vs. Teams: Communication Boundaries
00:09:50
Speaker
I do not trust the delay feature.
00:09:52
Speaker
I'm the type of person, if I set a time, so if I set it for 3 p.m., I'm going to check at 3 p.m.
00:09:56
Speaker
just to make sure it's sent.
00:09:58
Speaker
So I just send mine immediately because I just don't trust the delay button.
00:10:03
Speaker
Oh, I've been hosed by it so many times, like where emails I send out at 3 a.m.
00:10:08
Speaker
instead of 3 p.m.
00:10:09
Speaker
And so it has wronged me a few times, but I find more benefit than the cost of those problems occasionally.
00:10:15
Speaker
So approximately how much of each of your days is spent on average managing email?
00:10:21
Speaker
Honestly, I'd say it really depends on the day.
00:10:23
Speaker
So in the last, well, since COVID started, I would say, um,
00:10:30
Speaker
I'm in a lot more meetings now than I used to be.
00:10:34
Speaker
So that makes it difficult for me to have time at my desk to actually do work, which includes checking email.
00:10:41
Speaker
So if it's a meeting heavy day, I don't spend very much time at all because I don't feel compelled to stay there late to check the email.
00:10:51
Speaker
If it's a regular day, though, I would say probably...
00:10:55
Speaker
oh gosh, I don't know, 20, 25% of my time, I guess.
00:10:59
Speaker
And that's not necessarily all in one chunk.
00:11:02
Speaker
Obviously, I will say I used to be one of those people who had the email up all the time and would constantly be like going back and forth between the email and whatever I was working on.
00:11:12
Speaker
And I've had to kind of train myself not to do that anymore, because it was difficult for me to like focus on a task because I kept getting distracted by the email.
00:11:21
Speaker
So now I kind of
00:11:23
Speaker
Sometimes I kind of use checking the email as kind of a brain break from whatever it is that I'm working on.
00:11:30
Speaker
You know, like I'll get to a stopping point on a project or something that I'm writing or whatever and kind of go spend some time with email and then come back to it.
00:11:39
Speaker
And it kind of helps me stay a little bit more focused on both of those things, both the email and whatever project it is I'm working on.
00:11:47
Speaker
Yeah.
00:11:47
Speaker
And I probably spend an average of, I would say hour and 30 minutes each day.
00:11:53
Speaker
Not very long.
00:11:54
Speaker
I feel like the morning, my morning and my evening is consumed by emails.
00:11:58
Speaker
Mostly the afternoon is me sending emails to kind of prep for the next workday.
00:12:03
Speaker
But during closing, I've spent like almost half my day looking at some form of email communication, whether it was residents trying to coordinate a move out or, you know, just needing an extension or things like
Email Etiquette and Cultural Differences
00:12:15
Speaker
that.
00:12:15
Speaker
So these past couple of weeks,
00:12:16
Speaker
With move outs happening on campus, I could say at least half my day was responding to emails and residents that I ended up having to call because they started sending back to back emails.
00:12:27
Speaker
And I'm like, OK, let's get on the phone call because this is too many email responses.
00:12:32
Speaker
Well, those numbers are actually less than I thought they were going to be.
00:12:35
Speaker
And sometimes I wonder, you know, with as much time as we spend responding to emails, when do we actually ever get anything actually done?
00:12:42
Speaker
Agree.
00:12:43
Speaker
Can you all imagine what the industry looked like 30 years ago before there was email?
00:12:46
Speaker
Like, that's a fun thought experiment right there.
00:12:50
Speaker
Maggie's just shaking her head.
00:12:54
Speaker
Glazing off and wondering.
00:12:56
Speaker
I couldn't even imagine.
00:12:57
Speaker
Like, I'm so used to, like, very, like,
00:12:59
Speaker
messages coming from phone to phone or just, you know, so quickly or instantly.
00:13:03
Speaker
I can just imagine like you have to go tell someone in another department, you got to spend 30 minutes to an hour to go walk over there and let them know something and then coming back.
00:13:12
Speaker
I don't really know how that would work.
00:13:13
Speaker
But Monique, you probably don't even know what a world looked like without email.
00:13:18
Speaker
Like Maggie and I. Or text messages, cell phones.
00:13:20
Speaker
Yeah.
00:13:21
Speaker
Like Maggie, when I went to college, like email was kind of like it existed, but not really.
00:13:26
Speaker
It was like a thing, but people still didn't use it.
00:13:30
Speaker
It's like when I went to college and cell phones, it's like everyone had cell phones, but we still called each other's landlines.
00:13:35
Speaker
Yeah.
00:13:35
Speaker
Not just email, but really doing everything online.
00:13:38
Speaker
Like I can remember being a freshman.
00:13:40
Speaker
Yeah.
00:13:41
Speaker
Sam and having like during registration having to call like be on the phone and call in and register for my classes with like through my landline phone and if it was if the line was busy you just had to like hang up and keep trying right so yeah it was a very different time for sure yeah
00:14:02
Speaker
I just imagine a pile of memos on like some director's desk of like people dropping memos off.
00:14:08
Speaker
It's like my desk is a disaster right now with papers and nobody's dropping memos off.
00:14:13
Speaker
Yeah.
00:14:14
Speaker
In some ways though, I feel like maybe people were more productive and I think people probably had better, better critical thinking skills because they had to maybe figure things out on their own because they didn't have someone so quickly at hand to ask questions of and stuff.
00:14:31
Speaker
I don't know.
00:14:31
Speaker
Well, unless accountability, it's like everyone feels like they got to follow up in writing on every little thing.
00:14:37
Speaker
Yes, true.
00:14:38
Speaker
I often hear people talk about how many emails they have in their inbox, almost as if bragging, like, look how important and busy I am.
00:14:44
Speaker
Does volume of email demonstrate professional importance?
00:14:48
Speaker
And is this a problem?
00:14:50
Speaker
I do not think that it demonstrates the importance level a person has.
00:14:56
Speaker
I just believe that some of the stuff that you're like a CC'd in or BCC'd on,
00:15:01
Speaker
has nothing to do with you directly.
00:15:03
Speaker
Someone just wants you into the loop while they handle a situation.
00:15:07
Speaker
So sometimes they might not even need your reply.
00:15:11
Speaker
So I don't necessarily think someone having more emails equates to them being more important than another person.
00:15:17
Speaker
It just depends on what is needed in the context of those emails.
00:15:21
Speaker
I feel like makes you important, I guess, if that explains it.
00:15:25
Speaker
But yeah.
00:15:26
Speaker
a number doesn't matter is what's inside the email.
00:15:28
Speaker
What are people requesting from you needing from you?
00:15:31
Speaker
Yeah.
00:15:31
Speaker
What is the situation involving?
00:15:33
Speaker
I would agree with that as the person who has the most email and this little call, I don't think that my inbox size makes me any more important.
00:15:45
Speaker
And honestly, I don't really share very often.
00:15:49
Speaker
Like it's,
00:15:51
Speaker
I would say the people who are close to me at work know that my email is kind of ridiculous, but like some of our other staff members, if they're listening are probably going to be like, Holy crap.
00:16:01
Speaker
I had no idea that she was that kind of email hoarder.
00:16:03
Speaker
And I will tell you, my supervisor gets way more emails than I do, but he is really good about saving things and deleting.
00:16:10
Speaker
So, and he's clearly more important than me because he's my supervisor, right?
00:16:15
Speaker
And it's evaluation season.
00:16:16
Speaker
So, um, yeah,
00:16:18
Speaker
But so, yeah, no, I don't think that I don't think that it matters.
00:16:22
Speaker
But I will agree with what Monique said, because I have been asked before for things from years ago.
00:16:29
Speaker
I mean, hey, do you remember why we are doing this this way?
00:16:33
Speaker
And I don't.
00:16:34
Speaker
But I have been able to find emails from from several years prior that kind of explains that.
00:16:40
Speaker
And in fact, recently, one of our associate vice presidents, we were in a meeting and he said something about not deleting email and going on a treasure hunt for an email from 2013 and being really excited when he found it and was able to provide the information to the person.
00:16:54
Speaker
I was like, yes, that is yes.
00:16:56
Speaker
You're speaking my language, Tom.
00:16:58
Speaker
So, you know, I, yeah, I think that sometimes we, speaking for myself, I will intentionally hang on to emails because I know at some point somebody is going to ask me about something and I'm going to have to go on that treasure hunt to find it.
00:17:11
Speaker
So, but I don't think that makes me important.
00:17:13
Speaker
I think you're very important.
00:17:14
Speaker
Both of you.
00:17:17
Speaker
But it's sometimes like when coordinators or hall directors or whatever the position title is, is like, we'll sit around talking about how crappy their on-call was,
Inbox Organization and Automation Strategies
00:17:27
Speaker
like trying to one-up each other with who had the worst on-call.
00:17:31
Speaker
And it's like bragging in a sense.
00:17:33
Speaker
I kind of feel that way of sometimes with who has the most emails.
00:17:37
Speaker
It's a little misguided, in my opinion.
00:17:39
Speaker
But, you know, every housing professional worth their salt has missed something from time to time or dropped the ball.
00:17:44
Speaker
So is saying you have too many emails a good excuse for missing something?
00:17:49
Speaker
I don't think so.
00:17:50
Speaker
I mean, we all have the same number of hours in the day.
00:17:53
Speaker
We all have to choose how to spend those hours in the day and how to prioritize the work that we're doing and all of that.
00:18:00
Speaker
So no, I don't think saying I have too many emails and I missed it, maybe saying I had two full days of meetings and haven't gotten to it yet.
00:18:10
Speaker
Now that I think is a little bit different.
00:18:14
Speaker
But no, I don't think saying that you have a full inbox is really an excuse for missing an email.
00:18:21
Speaker
Right.
00:18:21
Speaker
Because that just kind of comes down to prioritizing.
00:18:24
Speaker
Like in some way you have to, well, you always should be managing your email and kind of being aware of what things are being asked of you and just kind of monitoring what needs to be done.
00:18:33
Speaker
So within your role, you have to assess, is this email something I need to respond to or take action on now?
00:18:39
Speaker
And so if you just have 100 emails that you got and you not even like checking the, like you said, the title of the email or if it was labeled as important, I feel like that's on you and that doesn't, that's not really an excuse.
00:18:52
Speaker
Like I said, you can have 100 emails and about 80 of them are just already submitting on call logs.
00:19:00
Speaker
It could be divisional newsletters.
00:19:04
Speaker
It could be things that are not like task related.
00:19:07
Speaker
So I don't think that is a good excuse for not,
00:19:09
Speaker
getting something done or missing a deadline.
00:19:12
Speaker
Now I have been received numerous emails, but I wasn't attached to the original one.
00:19:18
Speaker
So when I missed a deadline, that was not because I didn't read my emails because I wouldn't email included an email that had the information on it.
00:19:27
Speaker
So I feel like that could be something I discussed with like a supervisor or something like that.
00:19:32
Speaker
But
00:19:33
Speaker
still not an excuse for missing a deadline.
00:19:35
Speaker
Well, maybe the person who was supposed to send you that deadline had too many emails and that's why they missed it.
00:19:41
Speaker
Right.
00:19:43
Speaker
But Monique, I think you're absolutely right when you talk about prioritization.
00:19:46
Speaker
And I don't remember when it was, but I always remember one time I was like, what happened here?
00:19:51
Speaker
What got missed?
00:19:52
Speaker
And it's like, there's so many excuses that we made, but it's also just like, I didn't prioritize correctly.
00:19:57
Speaker
And that's what happened.
00:19:58
Speaker
And it's like, okay, now we can talk about that.
00:20:00
Speaker
And how do we identify priorities?
00:20:02
Speaker
So Monique, I think you're spot on about that.
00:20:04
Speaker
I personally think like it happens once or twice.
00:20:06
Speaker
Okay, fine, maybe.
00:20:07
Speaker
But, you know, we should really talk about, like we just said, prioritization.
00:20:11
Speaker
But it's a pattern, in my opinion, that quickly tires of like, okay, I'm going to give you that once, maybe twice.
00:20:19
Speaker
And now it's no longer good.
00:20:21
Speaker
Excuse.
00:20:22
Speaker
Now, I will say I have failed to do something because I was emailed about a particular task along with other people or another person.
00:20:32
Speaker
Yeah.
00:20:33
Speaker
And kind of just assume that someone else was going to do it, maybe because it was more in line with what their job was and didn't actually confirm with anyone, hey, who's doing this?
00:20:42
Speaker
So there have been times that great example, my admin and I both do a lot of the key management for our department.
00:20:50
Speaker
And so folks, a lot of times will email both of us because they don't know for sure if one or either of us is in the office.
00:20:55
Speaker
Yeah.
00:20:57
Speaker
And so there have been times when we've just both assumed the other one was taking care of something and then it didn't happen.
00:21:03
Speaker
So that's something I've had to kind of consciously be a little bit better about, like either following up and saying, OK, I've taken care of this or, OK, I'll take care of this or specifically asking, hey, do you have time to do this?
00:21:14
Speaker
Because I'm kind of, you know, under some other things right now.
00:21:18
Speaker
So I will own that I have missed emails because of that.
00:21:22
Speaker
No, I love that.
00:21:23
Speaker
I think that's so pertinent too, because you think about sending emails to like hall directors or coordinators or whatever, and just saying this broad thing needs to get done.
00:21:33
Speaker
And if you don't tag anyone as the recipient or like, okay, Monique, you need to do this.
00:21:38
Speaker
Maggie, you need to do this.
00:21:40
Speaker
It's so easy to just assume somebody else is going to do it.
00:21:44
Speaker
We talk about that in our department a lot about, you know, make sure you tag people or put somebody in charge of things.
00:21:51
Speaker
Well, and I think too, you know, the two line and the CC line in my mind designate different things, right?
00:22:00
Speaker
Like if I'm CC'd, it's just that to me, that's just an FYI.
00:22:03
Speaker
That doesn't mean that I need to do something.
00:22:05
Speaker
So I really try to be mindful when I send things of how I'm using those designations to try to kind of make it clear again, what expectations are and really who needs to do whatever it is I'm asking people to do.
00:22:19
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's important too, because in my department, everyone gets copied on everything.
00:22:25
Speaker
And I think that having clear expectations about what that means would be helpful.
00:22:31
Speaker
And I don't pay enough attention to that.
00:22:33
Speaker
So even if that was clear out there, I probably would need to pay more attention.
00:22:38
Speaker
Okay.
00:22:38
Speaker
So in the world of the pandemic, there have been additional platforms introduced to share information like Teams or other chat functions.
00:22:46
Speaker
How has this changed email usage in your professional lives?
00:22:50
Speaker
I think it's made it better.
00:22:51
Speaker
I'm someone that kind of dreads sending an email, especially when it's something super formal because I'm going to read it a few times.
00:22:59
Speaker
And so I like to utilize teams more often because it's more like instant messaging.
00:23:04
Speaker
I don't have to be so formal.
00:23:06
Speaker
I can get straight to the point, say some formality.
00:23:09
Speaker
So I think it's improved, but I'm also someone that grew up in tech-heavy generation.
00:23:14
Speaker
So I just appreciate
00:23:16
Speaker
the effort or the lack of effort it takes to use Teams versus sending like a formal email.
00:23:23
Speaker
And then it's also a helpful feature because on Teams, it shows you like pictures.
00:23:27
Speaker
So when I'm working with someone that has the same name or
Evolving Email Strategies for Career Advancement
00:23:31
Speaker
I'm confused on exactly who I'm talking to, I can look at their Teams and it has like the department they work for, their supervisor, and also a picture if they upload it.
00:23:41
Speaker
So I find that feature very helpful.
00:23:44
Speaker
So I prefer Team over email.
00:23:46
Speaker
I don't mind teams, but it's so ironic that you asked this because just today, one of our community directors emailed me and said, Hey, I sent somebody this and asked them to help me with it through teams, but it hasn't been done yet.
00:24:01
Speaker
Can you help me with it?
00:24:03
Speaker
And I was like, Oh yeah, sure.
00:24:04
Speaker
So I did it.
00:24:05
Speaker
And then she replied with a, by the way, do you prefer I send this kind of thing through teams or through email?
00:24:10
Speaker
Um,
00:24:11
Speaker
And in this instance, because I am a part of so many teams and teams or channels or whatever you call them, I'm not really team savvy that unless someone directly messages me,
00:24:26
Speaker
the tags get lost in the chatter, right?
00:24:28
Speaker
Because so many other people are using that platform for various and assorted things.
00:24:32
Speaker
So I agree with you, Monique.
00:24:35
Speaker
If it's just a quick, hey, I want to ask you a question, I think that's great.
00:24:39
Speaker
But if it's a, this really needs your attention, I'm sending you an attachment, I need you to do something, then personally, I prefer an email because that's more on my radar than the teams are.
00:24:52
Speaker
Yeah, I totally agree with all of that.
00:24:54
Speaker
It's so frustrating when it's like, because I've got staff who aren't at computers.
00:25:01
Speaker
And so I'm getting text messages, but I'm getting Teams messages.
00:25:05
Speaker
I'm getting emails.
00:25:06
Speaker
I'm getting phone calls.
00:25:07
Speaker
It's like, I wish I could go back two years and like lay out, here's what we use for what.
00:25:13
Speaker
And I think that would have made my life a lot better.
00:25:16
Speaker
We've actually been having that conversation as we've gotten ready for our summer conference operations because we have some folks in our department who have really
00:25:23
Speaker
been the early adopters for our department of teams who are all about the teams.
00:25:28
Speaker
And I'm like, okay, but some of this communication might get really confusing if, you know, so I've been trying to kind of, I don't know, mitigate some of that for my own, I guess, mental health, because I think there are some times that people just pay more attention to one or the other and things get lost if you're not using it consistently.
00:25:48
Speaker
Yeah.
00:25:49
Speaker
And working on the operations side and so closely with maintenance, it's like some conversations start in a phone call and then go through text message.
00:25:56
Speaker
And then we're back at computers.
00:25:58
Speaker
It's now in an email, but there's Teams follow-up.
00:26:00
Speaker
So it's like, if somebody ever asked me what's going on with a room, I have to start searching four different places and they all have different room formats of how they're put together.
00:26:11
Speaker
Like, it's just unbelievable.
00:26:13
Speaker
Yeah.
00:26:13
Speaker
And I utilize Teams only for like those personal interactions.
00:26:17
Speaker
So I'm a residence director.
00:26:18
Speaker
So I have like my RAs.
00:26:20
Speaker
I direct message them, especially when it's things that are personal in nature, but it's not necessarily super, I'm not going to say professional, but like specifically work RA related.
00:26:31
Speaker
It might be something going on with them personally.
00:26:33
Speaker
So I use that as like my texting like thing.
00:26:36
Speaker
So they know like if it's something non-formal, not a request, or it's just something you generally just want to know instantly to use Teams.
00:26:43
Speaker
But if it's anything like requesting to go somewhere for an extended period of time or missing a mandatory event, they know to send that an email because I like to attach it and file it in their personal folder.
00:26:56
Speaker
So I have documentation.
00:26:57
Speaker
So it's easy to find when someone asks me, oh, why this person missed this event?
00:27:01
Speaker
I'm like, oh, actually, I approved it.
00:27:03
Speaker
And here goes my documentation.
00:27:05
Speaker
So I kind of like to use that.
00:27:06
Speaker
And they kind of know.
00:27:08
Speaker
And they know not to call me on my personal phone because I would ignore, unless it's an emergency.
00:27:13
Speaker
Good for you.
00:27:13
Speaker
It's good to set boundaries.
00:27:15
Speaker
And it's hard being one year in the job and having set such a strong boundary.
00:27:19
Speaker
That's good for you.
00:27:20
Speaker
I'm proud of you.
00:27:21
Speaker
Thank you.
00:27:21
Speaker
I think it's easier and it needed to be done because we're so close in age that I feel like I needed to be more of that.
00:27:28
Speaker
And if anything, lack up after we, you know, form that good boundary and bond.
00:27:33
Speaker
But
00:27:34
Speaker
For now, I had to, you know, kind of hit it kind of firm because if not, they'll be texting me all day.
00:27:38
Speaker
Yeah.
00:27:39
Speaker
Most new professionals will go the other direction and be too available and then have a hard time walking back from it.
00:27:45
Speaker
So I know there's departments out there that have expectations for a reply to everything.
00:27:51
Speaker
And even if it's just like, thanks for acknowledgement.
00:27:54
Speaker
What do we think about that?
00:27:56
Speaker
Hate it.
00:27:56
Speaker
Hate it.
00:27:57
Speaker
Do not need another email.
00:27:59
Speaker
But I do understand and will acknowledge that some people need that.
00:28:02
Speaker
Some people need the affirmation that comes with getting the obligatory thanks message.
00:28:10
Speaker
I definitely don't.
00:28:11
Speaker
I don't think it's an expectation in my department.
00:28:13
Speaker
It's also something I feel is not needed.
00:28:17
Speaker
But I do think that depending on the content and the email, so like when I first started my role,
00:28:22
Speaker
I would say, yeah, thanks, or I got it, or those little small replies just so they knew I received the message, I understand what needs to be done.
00:28:31
Speaker
But that was earlier on.
00:28:33
Speaker
But now that I've built that reputation and that rapport with people, they kind of already know.
00:28:37
Speaker
If I don't respond, it's a good thing.
00:28:39
Speaker
It's understood.
00:28:40
Speaker
It's done.
00:28:41
Speaker
So I feel like maybe early on when you first start working with someone, just kind of giving them that thanks as the affirmation like you said.
00:28:48
Speaker
It could be helpful, but it just depends on if they need it.
00:28:50
Speaker
But I don't think it's necessary.
00:28:52
Speaker
I don't want I wouldn't want to put that in someone's inbox and I wouldn't want people putting it in mine.
00:28:57
Speaker
So.
00:28:58
Speaker
I've been in an environment that sort of had some level of expectation depending on who was sending it.
00:29:04
Speaker
And I ended up creating one of those quick step like auto buttons.
00:29:08
Speaker
So like any email that it was like, I have no action to take here, but I must acknowledge it.
00:29:12
Speaker
I would push the button.
00:29:13
Speaker
It would automatically pop up an email that said thanks and delete the other email.
00:29:18
Speaker
And that was one way I was like, oh, boom, everything's done at once and it's not in my inbox anymore.
00:29:23
Speaker
But I have acknowledged it like it's expected of me.
00:29:26
Speaker
That's smart.
00:29:28
Speaker
I think those quick steps are such a valuable tool that it's one of those you spend a little bit of time on the front end and it creates a whole lot of time saving and efficiency.
00:29:39
Speaker
I do daily emails to our pest control provider of here's our callback for service.
00:29:45
Speaker
It's like I've got a quick step that auto populates that email to begin with and I just paste in the service, send.
00:29:50
Speaker
Instead of typing the same message five days a week, four weeks a month, 12 months a year.
00:29:56
Speaker
I didn't even look into that.
00:29:57
Speaker
I didn't know about that feature.
00:29:59
Speaker
Oh, it's great.
00:30:00
Speaker
And it's one of those that I know I could use so much more effectively, but I just need to like invest a little bit of time
00:30:07
Speaker
I'm dropping down to see what all ones.
00:30:09
Speaker
It's like I had one for like quarantine, like turning quarantine units for cleaning that would be like populate for housekeeping.
00:30:16
Speaker
It's like here's the rooms to clean.
00:30:17
Speaker
And our daily do not enter list is one of those.
00:30:19
Speaker
It's just done.
00:30:21
Speaker
Yeah, that's a great idea.
00:30:22
Speaker
So how do we feel about copying other people's bosses on email requests or even instructions?
00:30:29
Speaker
You know, I think this is cultural.
00:30:31
Speaker
I will say in our department,
00:30:34
Speaker
Um, we, I feel like we do have some units where that's kind of the expectation.
00:30:40
Speaker
If you're going to,
00:30:42
Speaker
You know, like I just know with some of our people, if I'm going to email them to do something or, you know, ask them for something, I'm going to I'm just going to copy their supervisor because I know that's the expectation.
00:30:56
Speaker
Other people, not so much.
00:30:58
Speaker
I also think that sometimes it's an unfortunate necessity, right?
00:31:03
Speaker
If you are emailing someone who, you know, is kind of got a reputation for being slow to respond or, you
00:31:11
Speaker
maybe not respond at all.
00:31:13
Speaker
I mean, copying their supervisor kind of can prompt some action, right?
00:31:18
Speaker
So it kind of feels like a jerky thing to do, but sometimes you just have to, you know, but I don't get, personally, I don't get offended if somebody copies my supervisor on something.
00:31:29
Speaker
It just means that that's maybe one less thing that I have to loop him in on, you know, so yeah.
00:31:35
Speaker
I think it just depends on the situation and why you're doing it.
00:31:38
Speaker
But, you know, I don't do it with every email I send by any means.
00:31:43
Speaker
And I think that's a tough one.
00:31:45
Speaker
It just depends on when you introduce the supervisor, if that makes sense, or their boss.
00:31:51
Speaker
Because I can, sometimes it can be viewed as a power move.
00:31:53
Speaker
And I used to always see it as a power move.
00:31:56
Speaker
But now I understand it as a sense of accountability.
00:31:59
Speaker
Similar to what Maggie was saying, sometimes you just need to
00:32:02
Speaker
Either if you're like, you know, pushing it along to make sure it's getting done or maybe they would need their supervisor approval anyway.
00:32:10
Speaker
So why not loop them in?
00:32:12
Speaker
I think it's OK, especially for me, like if my supervisor is included, sometimes I BCC my supervisor in things because I want her in the loop.
00:32:21
Speaker
But I don't want anyone to know she's on the email.
00:32:23
Speaker
So sometimes I use that feature.
00:32:25
Speaker
But it also saves me the trouble of having to update her in our one on ones because she already knows what's going on.
00:32:31
Speaker
And I'm pretty confident she knows I'm doing my job.
00:32:33
Speaker
So typically they'll try to, you know, include my supervisor when they feel like I didn't give them the answer that they wanted.
00:32:38
Speaker
Or maybe it's incorrect information, especially being like newer in the role.
00:32:43
Speaker
But my supervisor is pretty great at letting me handle things and like entrusting me to know that I'm doing what she would do or what she would advise.
00:32:52
Speaker
So I don't take offense to it.
00:32:53
Speaker
I think it's like, hey, you saved me a conversation.
00:32:56
Speaker
I hate it when I get BCC'd on things because my default button on any email now is just reply all.
00:33:05
Speaker
And I do not pay attention close enough usually to like where my status is on the email of like, was it to me?
00:33:12
Speaker
Was I on the copy line?
00:33:13
Speaker
And that's what that just brings me fear.
00:33:16
Speaker
It's like, I get why you did it, but I really don't want that to happen because I can create a negative situation.
00:33:23
Speaker
So I feel like JC, and maybe it's different in the Microsoft 360 because I, Monique, that happens to me too.
00:33:34
Speaker
I will be BCC'd on things either by my staff or my supervisor.
00:33:38
Speaker
And I feel like when I have also replied all in past, it just sends the reply to the sender if you've been BCC'd.
00:33:45
Speaker
Maybe I'm wrong about that.
00:33:47
Speaker
Maybe test it next time and see who pops up in that two field.
00:33:52
Speaker
But I think it kind of...
00:33:54
Speaker
smartly covers you from doing that, I guess, maybe.
00:33:58
Speaker
So I'm trying to think if I've got, I don't know, I'm not going to go back through and look at what I've BCC'd on to test it.
00:34:05
Speaker
But next time you're BCC'd on something, JC, hear reply all and see what it does, because I'm pretty sure it'll just go back to the sender.
00:34:12
Speaker
Maybe tomorrow on our action item list, I'm going to have my staff generate this fake email with BCCs.
00:34:19
Speaker
But then the problem, some of these things is like, I can do a little bit of testing, but I need to involve other people.
00:34:24
Speaker
It's like, but in doing so, now I'm really demonstrating my idiosyncrasies that I kind of keep in check.
00:34:31
Speaker
And I don't know if I'm quite there yet to do this.
00:34:34
Speaker
I don't want people to know how deep down the rabbit hole I go sometimes.
00:34:38
Speaker
Yeah.
00:34:38
Speaker
I mean, we can test it.
00:34:40
Speaker
I'll email Monique tomorrow and BCCUJC, and you can reply all and see what happens.
00:34:45
Speaker
How about that?
00:34:45
Speaker
Done.
00:34:46
Speaker
Done.
00:34:48
Speaker
I will send it tomorrow morning.
00:34:50
Speaker
Are there any in either of your departments or are you aware of in other departments?
00:34:54
Speaker
Are there any general expectations given to new staff in their onboarding about email etiquette or email culture?
00:35:02
Speaker
I would say we definitely warn people about the volume of email.
00:35:06
Speaker
It's a big department.
00:35:07
Speaker
We're spread out over a lot of different offices.
00:35:10
Speaker
So I feel like that always comes up, even in the interview process, whenever they're like, you know, Oh, what skills do I need?
00:35:17
Speaker
We, we always talk about the volume of email and how that we're such like an email heavy department.
00:35:23
Speaker
So I would say, you know, we, we,
00:35:26
Speaker
For me, I try to tell my staff, okay, if you see emails from these people, you need to make sure you're paying attention, right?
00:35:33
Speaker
Like those are important people that you probably need to answer or at least acknowledge that you've received the message and that you're working on an answer.
00:35:41
Speaker
But I don't think we give specific, you know, etiquette, um...
00:35:48
Speaker
like etiquette instructions, there is a particular like a way that we're supposed to set up our signature line, right?
00:35:55
Speaker
With university branding guidelines and all of that.
00:35:57
Speaker
So we tend to make sure that that's done correctly.
00:36:00
Speaker
But other than just the heads up of, if you're not good at email management, you better get good quick.
00:36:05
Speaker
Sink or swim.
00:36:06
Speaker
Yeah, exactly.
00:36:07
Speaker
For real.
00:36:08
Speaker
We don't really talk about any specific etiquette like as a department.
00:36:12
Speaker
Supervisors may do that on their own with their staff members, but departmentally, it's not something that we address.
00:36:20
Speaker
Yeah, I agree.
00:36:21
Speaker
I don't.
00:36:22
Speaker
I was recently onboarded.
00:36:23
Speaker
Well, not too recently.
00:36:23
Speaker
I'm almost a bit of it.
00:36:25
Speaker
But when I was onboarding, they really just talked about setting up your email, making it look nice, you know, encouraging us to use the cut, like, you know, the UTA colors and things like that.
00:36:35
Speaker
I feel like they set an expectation for out of office messages early on.
00:36:40
Speaker
That was something they said, oh, you make sure you have a template.
00:36:42
Speaker
Be sure to always do that when you're out of office.
00:36:45
Speaker
And of course, like everything else just came from my supervisors, just like tips and tricks or, you know, what to include, for example, like it'll save time if you include everything so they won't have to reply back and you have to reply again.
00:36:56
Speaker
So it was just more so tips and tricks, but no like set expectations were established or given to me.
00:37:02
Speaker
It's a part of like our onboarding with new staff.
00:37:05
Speaker
I have talked very directly with them about the environment of like,
00:37:09
Speaker
I don't know what kind of environment you're coming from, but here everybody gets copied on everything and it's not, do not take it as a, your supervisor got copied.
00:37:18
Speaker
So you're doing something wrong.
00:37:20
Speaker
And to be very clear about that, because that was quite a culture shock.
00:37:23
Speaker
And again, I'm not like a self-conscious person or like insecure about that kind of stuff, but it still was a culture shock of like, whoa, this is until you get in a ways and understand and get the feel of it.
00:37:36
Speaker
And so I try and address that on the front end of like,
00:37:40
Speaker
Depending on where you're coming from, this might be a little bit of a shock.
00:37:44
Speaker
And then it's funny when like new staff will then immediately like copy everybody on something.
00:37:48
Speaker
It's like, okay, I didn't mean that literally on this little knucklehead request does not need everybody on, but better to be safe than sorry.
00:37:58
Speaker
Yeah.
00:37:59
Speaker
Especially when you're new.
00:38:00
Speaker
Exactly.
00:38:01
Speaker
You know, give it a little bit more as opposed to a little bit less.
00:38:03
Speaker
Yeah.
00:38:04
Speaker
What about subject lines?
00:38:06
Speaker
This is one I was talking about earlier today that nondescript subject lines drive me crazy.
00:38:15
Speaker
I agree with that.
00:38:16
Speaker
I will also say...
00:38:18
Speaker
I'm not a huge fan of the subject line being the message.
00:38:24
Speaker
Um, I, I on occasion get emails like that and I understand why, right.
00:38:29
Speaker
If it's literally just like a quick, to me, if your subject line is going to be your message, send me a teams.
00:38:35
Speaker
Right.
00:38:36
Speaker
Um, but yes, the nondescript subject line is,
00:38:40
Speaker
That is definitely frustrating.
00:38:42
Speaker
Need help.
00:38:43
Speaker
Right.
00:38:44
Speaker
And for me, it's because a lot of times I will search for something by subject, right?
00:38:51
Speaker
So if it's not a specific subject, then that makes it challenging.
00:38:56
Speaker
The subject is also sometimes how I prioritize the emails.
00:39:01
Speaker
So we've kind of talked about prioritizing by sender.
00:39:04
Speaker
all senders equal the subject line and that little red, you know, exclamation point signifying that it's urgent or whatever.
00:39:12
Speaker
Although sometimes that's overused too, but the subject line is what helps me really figure out, okay, what do I need to answer first?
00:39:21
Speaker
What really needs my attention here?
00:39:23
Speaker
So a detailed subject line doesn't have to be long, but a detailed subject line is definitely appreciated.
00:39:30
Speaker
The subject line is very important.
00:39:31
Speaker
That's how I
00:39:32
Speaker
Search for things.
00:39:33
Speaker
It's the way to easily find things.
00:39:36
Speaker
I know I use different ones when I'm emailing my residents.
00:39:38
Speaker
I use something fun like free pizza.
00:39:42
Speaker
And I'm like, hopefully that'll grab their attention to open the email and hopefully read it.
00:39:45
Speaker
But professionally, it's more so like this is pertaining to room 1111.
00:39:51
Speaker
So people know exactly what we're talking about.
00:39:54
Speaker
They'll open it based off that, of course, by priority.
00:39:57
Speaker
But yeah, it just depends on who I'm emailing.
00:39:59
Speaker
So residents always catch you something fun.
00:40:02
Speaker
in something free.
00:40:03
Speaker
It makes me so annoyed when somebody will switch topic mid email stream, right?
00:40:11
Speaker
Like they'll reply to this subject with something completely different, or it's like a, okay, I'm going to address what's in the subject line.
00:40:19
Speaker
And then I'm gonna ask another question.
00:40:21
Speaker
And it kind of
00:40:22
Speaker
steers the conversation in a different way or the correspondence in a different way.
00:40:25
Speaker
That again, because I search and organize sometimes by subject line.
00:40:31
Speaker
Oh my gosh, that is so super annoying.
00:40:33
Speaker
Again, I understand why people do it because it seems stupid to start a whole new like email thread whenever I'm already in the midst of typing to like, you know, typing to somebody, but yeah,
00:40:42
Speaker
That is sometimes not helpful, especially if I've already got it in my brain.
00:40:46
Speaker
Okay, here was the email subject that we were using to talk about this particular situation, and then it changes.
00:40:53
Speaker
That I'm not a fan of.
00:40:55
Speaker
That is one of my email pet peeves, I would say.
00:40:58
Speaker
Maggie, I don't think it's stupid at all to start a new email.
00:41:02
Speaker
Unless the subject line is like...
00:41:04
Speaker
items needing addressing, which means there's lots of items in there.
00:41:08
Speaker
But if it is like roommate conflict in 223, and then all of a sudden you talk about that and then it's like, oh, and by the way, this air conditioner is not working also.
00:41:17
Speaker
I would much rather have a follow-up that says, by the way, this is going on also, or something like that.
00:41:25
Speaker
Because yes, searching, that is such a key thing.
00:41:28
Speaker
And
00:41:29
Speaker
Well, thank you for validating that because I'm glad I'm not the only one that is.
00:41:36
Speaker
Maybe we should come up with like, just here's the quote unquote best practices for email etiquette in the KUHOI standards.
00:41:44
Speaker
Yeah, maybe we should.
00:41:45
Speaker
Maybe we should.
00:41:47
Speaker
It would be an interesting roundtable, I think.
00:41:50
Speaker
It sure would.
00:41:51
Speaker
If we could expand this conversation to more.
00:41:53
Speaker
Yeah.
00:41:54
Speaker
Kuhoai in 2022.
00:41:56
Speaker
Yeah.
00:41:57
Speaker
We got it.
00:41:58
Speaker
If you were the ruler of all the world and all of email, what rules would you establish for your department about email usage or subject lines or anything else?
00:42:11
Speaker
My number one rule would be you have three strikes with the reply all.
00:42:19
Speaker
And after you have abused it, misused it, whatever, three times it is taken off.
00:42:25
Speaker
You are, you no longer have the option to use it.
00:42:28
Speaker
Sorry, not sorry.
00:42:30
Speaker
Love that.
00:42:30
Speaker
Y'all know what I'm talking about?
00:42:33
Speaker
Yes.
00:42:35
Speaker
I'm sure that y'all have sometimes intentionally not replied all and just replied to one person so you don't become that person.
00:42:45
Speaker
To me, the reply all is like being trapped in a text thread that you can't get out of.
00:42:52
Speaker
That would probably be my number one thing.
00:42:55
Speaker
A stiff penalty for the abuse of the reply all button.
00:42:59
Speaker
Well, and the problem with that is it's so embarrassing when you do it that then you feel obligated to be like, oh my gosh, I'm replying all again.
00:43:06
Speaker
Sorry, everyone.
00:43:07
Speaker
Oops.
00:43:09
Speaker
And then you do it again and it perpetuates, but it's like, I don't want to sit here and everyone think I'm an idiot and not know that I replied all to this thing.
00:43:17
Speaker
Like, thanks.
00:43:18
Speaker
Okay.
00:43:19
Speaker
Show some personality.
00:43:20
Speaker
The only reason why I say this, because people, I might know them personally.
00:43:23
Speaker
And then an email, not saying if it's not like anything that could be pulled for any type of record.
00:43:29
Speaker
I'm like, why are you formally introducing yourself?
00:43:32
Speaker
I met you 50 times.
00:43:34
Speaker
I'm like, you can show some personality, loosen up.
00:43:36
Speaker
I know you're nothing like this.
00:43:37
Speaker
in person.
00:43:38
Speaker
So just please be yourself.
00:43:40
Speaker
But one that's really important as well is if you send the email and I didn't respond in an hour, do not send the same exact email again because that is not going to make me respond to you any faster.
00:43:54
Speaker
But I've had that a few times.
00:43:56
Speaker
There's someone, they'll wait 24 hours and every 24 hours, I'm like, I'm still having it in my inbox.
00:44:00
Speaker
It's still unread.
00:44:01
Speaker
Now I just have three unread messages from you instead of one.
00:44:05
Speaker
Yes.
00:44:06
Speaker
Yes, listeners, you couldn't see the video, but Maggie did the biggest eye roll, look to the sky, like exasperated look as Monique was talking.
00:44:15
Speaker
I threw up the preach hands on that one.
00:44:17
Speaker
Yes.
00:44:18
Speaker
Oh, my gosh.
00:44:19
Speaker
If it is that critical, pick up your phone and call me.
00:44:23
Speaker
That is probably my other pet peeve is I will get, again, because I'm not one of these.
00:44:31
Speaker
My inbox has to be at zero.
00:44:33
Speaker
I'm checking my email until 10 o'clock at night.
00:44:35
Speaker
I have two kids.
00:44:36
Speaker
I have two dogs.
00:44:36
Speaker
I'm
00:44:37
Speaker
if I'm not on call or specifically needing to check email because of COVID or whatever, I'm not checking it after five as a general habit.
00:44:47
Speaker
So I,
00:44:49
Speaker
There is nothing worse to me than getting an email the next day and thinking to myself, why didn't they just call me?
00:44:57
Speaker
Like this was urgent enough to warrant a phone call.
00:45:01
Speaker
And now it's been, you know, 12, 16, 18 hours later and the issue still hasn't been addressed.
00:45:08
Speaker
Why didn't somebody pick up the phone?
00:45:10
Speaker
That's like students who put in work orders for their toilet overflowing and not calling it in and then being mad at
00:45:17
Speaker
but they do it after hours and then being mad.
00:45:19
Speaker
It's like nobody addressed this from 5 p.m.
00:45:21
Speaker
to 8 a.m.
00:45:22
Speaker
last night.
00:45:23
Speaker
Yes.
00:45:24
Speaker
Make a phone call.
00:45:25
Speaker
Yes.
00:45:25
Speaker
Ooh, another pet peeve while we're on them.
00:45:28
Speaker
Emo pet peeves.
00:45:30
Speaker
Someone will say, urgent, I really need your attention.
00:45:33
Speaker
It really needs your attention.
00:45:34
Speaker
And I'm like, can you include what is involving?
00:45:38
Speaker
Like if you're saying, hey, I really need to talk to you.
00:45:41
Speaker
My life is in danger.
00:45:42
Speaker
I would respond to that versus you saying, urgent, I need you.
00:45:46
Speaker
Include some content.
00:45:48
Speaker
some context so I know what is needing my attention so urgently.
00:45:52
Speaker
But sometimes people put nothing in the email that says, I just need you.
00:45:55
Speaker
And I'm like, I don't know what you need.
00:45:57
Speaker
And it's just hard.
00:45:59
Speaker
Like now I'm guessing.
00:46:01
Speaker
Well, speaking of urgency, what do you all define as warranting the exclamation mark high priority flag on your emails?
00:46:09
Speaker
I would say I use that if I have something that has a deadline, right?
00:46:17
Speaker
So if it's a, if it's like a quick deadline, if it's more than,
00:46:22
Speaker
48 hours probably then I'm going to call or I'm going to teams, but something that needs a debt that has a deadline, I'm usually going to put that little, um, you know, urgent thing.
00:46:34
Speaker
Um, I'm trying to think of specific situations when I've actually used it, but honestly, I have a tendency instead of using the little red arrow, I will put in the subject line action needed.
00:46:50
Speaker
And then, you know, like,
00:46:52
Speaker
whatever the topic is, because I feel like that is going to be more attention grabbing sometimes than even the little red arrow.
00:47:01
Speaker
So I have a tendency to do that more than the arrow.
00:47:04
Speaker
I don't really use that feature that often, but I think I've used it like once or twice within my role.
00:47:10
Speaker
And it's typically, like you said, a quick turnaround or a quick deadline or something that was a quick change.
00:47:15
Speaker
Like say if I'm emailing a group and say,
00:47:17
Speaker
Well, typically I use a calendar invite, but sometimes I follow up in an email and I'm like, location change.
00:47:23
Speaker
The event happened in an hour, location was changed.
00:47:25
Speaker
I use something important like that.
00:47:28
Speaker
But other than that, I try not to overuse it because if you do, then I feel like when people see your name and that exclamation point, they won't read it because they're like, oh, they don't need anything.
00:47:37
Speaker
They're just using it so I'll answer them first.
00:47:40
Speaker
Monique's such a drama queen with all of her exclamation points.
00:47:43
Speaker
Yeah.
00:47:45
Speaker
If everything's a priority, nothing is one of those moments.
00:47:47
Speaker
Yeah.
00:47:48
Speaker
Yeah.
00:47:49
Speaker
I think going back, I think one thing I just thought of another thing that drives me crazy is like somebody will send something at like four 55 and then follow up the next morning at like eight, 10, like just wanted to make sure you saw my email.
00:48:05
Speaker
And I'm like, yes.
00:48:08
Speaker
And then I went home because I couldn't resolve whatever you needed in five minutes.
00:48:12
Speaker
Yeah.
00:48:13
Speaker
And it wasn't an emergency.
00:48:14
Speaker
And I got to work and now I'm getting to it.
00:48:18
Speaker
And then they love to say, I emailed you yesterday and it's been 24 hours.
00:48:22
Speaker
No, it might've been Monday you emailed me and now it's Tuesday, but that is not 24 hours.
00:48:27
Speaker
And you can wait.
00:48:30
Speaker
Or I emailed you last week on Friday at 4.30 and it's got all these people on it.
00:48:39
Speaker
And how then do you respond to be like,
00:48:41
Speaker
Yes, you did email me at the end of the week.
00:48:45
Speaker
Yeah.
00:48:46
Speaker
So let's not elevate the excitement level here and try and make people look bad.
00:48:52
Speaker
So let's talk some more strategies.
00:48:55
Speaker
I heard somewhere that, you know, how do we best automate the busy work?
00:48:58
Speaker
And I think email is often busy work.
00:49:00
Speaker
Like any of you automate any way, even like thought process or, you know, how do you how do we do that?
00:49:07
Speaker
So I don't really do this with my own inbox, but during COVID, a colleague and I kind of jointly managed kind of a general Ask Res Life email that we provided to students who were in quarantine or isolation if they had questions or things like that.
00:49:28
Speaker
So something that we did was we used the out of office as kind of an automated FAQ.
00:49:36
Speaker
And we put in that, you know, thank you for your email.
00:49:40
Speaker
We're experiencing, you know, a high volume of emails.
00:49:43
Speaker
Please read the FAQ below.
00:49:45
Speaker
If your question is still not answered, send it again.
00:49:50
Speaker
Otherwise, we will not reply to you.
00:49:54
Speaker
And so then we could kind of go into the inbox, sort by sender, see who we had duplicates from.
00:50:00
Speaker
And those were the ones that we prioritized answering.
00:50:02
Speaker
Yeah.
00:50:02
Speaker
We also use that during break periods as well.
00:50:05
Speaker
When we weren't in the office, we were still checking that email throughout the break, but maybe not as frequently.
00:50:11
Speaker
And I think that proved for us to be a good way to kind of manage that quick response expectation of those students.
00:50:21
Speaker
And also when the volume of that inbox was super high, made it a little bit easier for us to identify, okay, who really needs us to reply because their situation is something outside of the FAQ.
00:50:35
Speaker
So that's one strategy that I would recommend if you.
00:50:39
Speaker
you know, monitor a very high volume box, use that out of office and make it work for you as kind of that quick, immediate response.
00:50:47
Speaker
So they know you've gotten the message and that you're, you know, going to get back to them.
00:50:53
Speaker
I love that.
00:50:54
Speaker
I think that's a great idea.
00:50:56
Speaker
That's really nice.
00:50:57
Speaker
Have to note that for a
00:51:00
Speaker
A couple of tricks that I'll use in the near future.
00:51:03
Speaker
The only thing that I automate that's really busy for me is billing.
00:51:07
Speaker
So I process billing for like resident lockouts and conduct violation, fines and things like that.
00:51:14
Speaker
So I automate it into one folder.
00:51:17
Speaker
And so what I do is I check that folder daily and then print each one.
00:51:21
Speaker
I have to then submit it to housing operations for them to put the charge in the residence account.
00:51:26
Speaker
So that's the only thing I use that's really automated because I feel like it's easy instead of me putting it in folders myself, that'll take, you know, a few moments out of my time.
00:51:35
Speaker
I can save time doing that as well as I know one place to look for it and it can't get lost in it.
00:51:40
Speaker
My email threads are other emails.
00:51:42
Speaker
So that's the only thing I use that's like on an automated system.
00:51:46
Speaker
Well, and I love that too.
00:51:47
Speaker
That's a, like a great example of a system in place of like,
00:51:50
Speaker
You get 15 billing forms in a day.
00:51:52
Speaker
You can stop and do 15 all at once and like, okay, got a print.
00:51:56
Speaker
Now I got a sign.
00:51:56
Speaker
Now I got to take it over.
00:51:58
Speaker
Or if you just like every day at four o'clock, I'm going to do all the ones for the day, do it all at once.
00:52:03
Speaker
It's much more efficient.
00:52:04
Speaker
It's also less aggravating in my opinion of like, oh, another billing form got to do the knucklehead stuff.
00:52:09
Speaker
So I love that.
00:52:10
Speaker
I think that's great.
00:52:11
Speaker
Yeah, I use rules too, if it's things like that.
00:52:14
Speaker
So we have security that walk around our buildings every night and they send a report to me and multiple other people.
00:52:22
Speaker
For me, it's just an FYI because other people take action on the reports.
00:52:27
Speaker
So I have those just filter into a folder so they don't clog up my inbox.
00:52:33
Speaker
So there are things like that that I also get a copy of every instant report that's written.
00:52:39
Speaker
So those filter straight into a folder, you know, and then if someone says, did you see the incident report about such and such?
00:52:47
Speaker
Then I go look for that one and read it.
00:52:49
Speaker
Otherwise, I don't read them.
00:52:51
Speaker
So, yeah, I use rules there.
00:52:53
Speaker
I also noticed my beloved other folder tab.
00:52:58
Speaker
Sometimes there were messages that would go into that.
00:53:01
Speaker
that I needed to come into my inbox.
00:53:03
Speaker
So as I've noticed those, I've set up rules to make sure those get to my actual focused, the focused part of my inbox instead of going into that other box too.
00:53:13
Speaker
So that has helped me not miss things like my staff's time off requests and things like that, that I discovered were going into that other, that little other box.
00:53:24
Speaker
So yeah.
00:53:25
Speaker
Well, and I think that brings up an important point about the consistency.
00:53:29
Speaker
It's easier to set up rules if there's consistency in how they come to you.
00:53:33
Speaker
And the other, for all listeners out there who are like, oh, I'm going to start doing rules, is the more specific you can be, the better.
00:53:40
Speaker
Because I had one when I was an assistant director at UTA that filtered all the RA program proposals.
00:53:46
Speaker
I got all of them.
00:53:47
Speaker
They automatically got filtered over here.
00:53:49
Speaker
Well, one hall director, our residence director, had submitted professional development activity for their staff that got filtered through there over here, or she had forwarded to me.
00:54:00
Speaker
And so if I had been more specific, it got auto filtered.
00:54:03
Speaker
But if I had been more specific in terms of it's coming from this, do not reply at mock forms.com or whatever, instead of just any subject line that says Casey hall program proposal.
00:54:15
Speaker
And she's like, why haven't you talked to me about this proposal I sent you?
00:54:18
Speaker
And I'm like, I have no idea what you're talking about.
00:54:20
Speaker
And then it's like, Oh, cause I, my, my rule wasn't good enough.
00:54:24
Speaker
Yeah.
00:54:24
Speaker
I've run into that issue as well.
00:54:25
Speaker
So I used to filter everything that came from like the housing.
00:54:28
Speaker
So when,
00:54:29
Speaker
residents submit room change requests and move outs.
00:54:33
Speaker
It'll, it'll all filter in one folder, which I don't check often because we had used the online system to have residents sign up for like winter break, uh, checkout times.
00:54:43
Speaker
And now it's so confusing because now everything housing sins go to one folder.
00:54:48
Speaker
And so it's hard for me to organize it when I should have either been more specific early on or just take it in my inbox and I separated myself.
00:54:56
Speaker
So I've learned the hard way.
00:54:58
Speaker
So now I have like a,
00:54:59
Speaker
thousand emails alone is in that one folder.
00:55:02
Speaker
And I'm like, oops.
00:55:07
Speaker
One thing I did, it's not necessarily automation, but in terms of like batching or bulking, I will go back and delete every email from not the last term, but the term before that.
00:55:19
Speaker
And it's like, I think,
00:55:22
Speaker
Reasonably so.
00:55:22
Speaker
If I haven't answered or haven't done anything with it, it doesn't need to be done anymore.
00:55:27
Speaker
And I just so like right before this, I deleted everything from August 1st of last year for the summer term and cleared out, I think, 2000 emails or something like that all in one stroke.
00:55:39
Speaker
And when May 31st hits, it's like, okay, now I'll get around to doing the next term before that.
00:55:46
Speaker
And I heard this story once about a president of a university.
00:55:49
Speaker
I don't know if it's true or not, but every day or every Friday at the end of Friday would take his arm and all the papers on his desk would like push him off into the trash can.
00:56:01
Speaker
And if I haven't dealt with it by now, it doesn't need to be dealt with anymore.
00:56:06
Speaker
So I don't know how true that is, but it always made me smile thinking about like just having that level of power and, you know, authority.
00:56:14
Speaker
I sometimes if I find myself with a little bit of downtime, which doesn't happen often, or if that number in the inbox really starts to creep up, because believe it or not, it has been higher than the number I said at the beginning of this.
00:56:27
Speaker
I will sort by sender and that will help me really quickly identify like, you know, the bulk mails that everybody at the university gets.
00:56:38
Speaker
I'm bad about it.
00:56:40
Speaker
one reading and then deleting those.
00:56:43
Speaker
So, you know, sometimes that will help me quickly clean out things that are junky or that are from people who aren't here anymore.
00:56:51
Speaker
Or, you know, like I've got a lot of stuff still related to COVID from students that sorting by sender has helped me get rid of a lot of that pretty quickly.
00:57:02
Speaker
Well, and I think that that's, if you have a lot of emails, I feel like it's super easy to delete the
00:57:10
Speaker
In my case, it would be super easy to delete 7,000 of them.
00:57:14
Speaker
It gets harder the smaller the number gets because you can bulk.
00:57:18
Speaker
Before this, I was just having some fun and I went back to, we have an emergency management system that sends out notices about rooms that need to be cleaned because of COVID or whatever.
00:57:28
Speaker
Just sorted by all them, deleted them all.
00:57:30
Speaker
It was like, I just deleted 500 emails all at once.
00:57:33
Speaker
It's easy to find big batches, like you said, Maggie, of this person or this conversation.
00:57:39
Speaker
It's 35 long, delete all the others.
00:57:43
Speaker
But then once you get down to like nitty gritty, it's like, oh, these need a little bit more thought and take a little bit more time.
00:57:49
Speaker
Yes, I would agree with that for sure.
00:57:52
Speaker
I think eliminating subscriptions is a good one.
00:57:54
Speaker
If you get any subscriptions in your work email, like just turn them off or auto delete them.
00:58:00
Speaker
That is something I need to do for sure.
00:58:02
Speaker
I just deleted 175 emails from Akuhoi all at once.
00:58:06
Speaker
And I feel a little obligated to share this just because of my number of unread and people judging and my career out there of potentially interview for your job someday.
00:58:18
Speaker
I heard your email's a mess and it's on record.
00:58:21
Speaker
But for example, to illustrate, during the summer when we have our make ready,
00:58:27
Speaker
I get an email every single workday that is a list of carpet replacements, a list of carpet cleanings, plus the vendor confirmation, a list of final cleanings, plus vendor confirmation, tub surfacing, internal make readies, internal cleanings, confirmations, pest control confirmations, and final walks, only two of which actually require action on my part.
00:58:51
Speaker
In that moment.
00:58:52
Speaker
So the rest are just like informational or good reference material later on.
00:58:56
Speaker
So in that exact, there was, I think at least 10 and only two of them were directly relevant.
00:59:02
Speaker
So, you know, that would be an easy place to go and be like, I can delete all these vendor confirmations all at once.
00:59:08
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely.
00:59:10
Speaker
All right.
00:59:10
Speaker
So in closing, Monique, do you think the strategies you use now will scale up as you advance your career?
00:59:19
Speaker
Of course, I'm constantly evolving and finding new strategies, whether that's being exposed to different styles through coworkers, mentors, my supervisor.
00:59:30
Speaker
I feel like I'm constantly taking on others' ideas and seeing if it works for me.
00:59:35
Speaker
I like to test a few things out.
00:59:36
Speaker
Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.
00:59:39
Speaker
That's what got me on the system I use now.
00:59:42
Speaker
And when I was a grad assistant, I could use my sticky notes.
00:59:46
Speaker
I probably rarely even opened my email.
00:59:49
Speaker
Now I constantly open my email.
00:59:50
Speaker
I check my email.
00:59:52
Speaker
So I feel like I can definitely see it changing in the future because I like to switch things up and, you know, this is already getting boring.
00:59:59
Speaker
I mastered my current strategy.
01:00:01
Speaker
So why not, you know, try something new?
01:00:04
Speaker
And Maggie, I know you've talked a little bit about this, but any evolution that you've seen since you were a young professional?
01:00:10
Speaker
Yeah.
01:00:11
Speaker
I mean, you know, I think that one, I keep a lot more now than I did back then, just because I'm, I won't say I live in fear, but I do not want to be, you know, put in a situation where I'm asked for something and don't have it.
01:00:28
Speaker
So I definitely keep a lot more now.
01:00:30
Speaker
So it has evolved and I think it will continue to evolve.
01:00:32
Speaker
And
01:00:33
Speaker
You know, I've, there are definitely things that I've had to throw away my, my desire to be a color coder and a, a folder user, for example, like, but I do think that it will continue, you know, to evolve.
01:00:46
Speaker
I may get to a place where I have to use some folders.
01:00:49
Speaker
I don't know.
01:00:49
Speaker
We'll see.
01:00:50
Speaker
Or if they limit the space that I have in my inbox, I may have to start deleting things a little more frequently.
01:00:56
Speaker
And I will tell you, I start every semester, um,
01:00:59
Speaker
with the goal of being better about deleting messages.
01:01:04
Speaker
I have failed every semester in my 18 years as a housing professional.
01:01:10
Speaker
So I'm still holding out hope that, you know, maybe one of these semesters I'll actually do it and it'll be okay.
01:01:15
Speaker
But, um, you know, yeah, it'll, it'll continue to evolve for sure.
01:01:21
Speaker
Maggie, if there's one thing I've learned in my career is that the high value for consistency.
01:01:25
Speaker
And so I just value your consistency in that failure.
01:01:28
Speaker
Well, thanks, JC.
01:01:29
Speaker
I appreciate that.
01:01:31
Speaker
And Maggie, to put you on the spot, is it true that at one point in your career, you may have had 90,000 emails in your inbox?
01:01:39
Speaker
I will neither confirm nor deny that.
01:01:42
Speaker
Oh!
01:01:43
Speaker
I will neither confirm nor deny that.
01:01:45
Speaker
But I will tell you, JC, you may not remember this, but I vividly remember.
01:01:51
Speaker
I'm pretty sure we were at Akuhuai.
01:01:53
Speaker
I can picture the restaurant we were sitting in.
01:01:55
Speaker
We were with Berg and Brandi Bowen.
01:01:57
Speaker
And I don't remember how we got on the topic of email.
01:02:00
Speaker
But when I said how many emails were in my inbox, I will never forget the look on your face was kind of like one of those.
01:02:08
Speaker
I don't know that emoji with like the giant eyes and the mouth hanging open.
01:02:11
Speaker
Right.
01:02:12
Speaker
Like that's what it looked like.
01:02:13
Speaker
And I'm pretty sure that you referred to me as an email hoarder.
01:02:18
Speaker
So I like to think that this topic was planted in your brain by that conversation with
01:02:25
Speaker
many years ago.
01:02:27
Speaker
I do remember that conversation very well.
01:02:30
Speaker
And it was really more of a shock of like the scale of it is like, you know, 1000 doesn't matter if you've got 10,000, just like one doesn't matter if you've got 100.
01:02:39
Speaker
Like when we're talking orders of magnitude, but it's like 90,000.
01:02:41
Speaker
I was trying to in my head think like, have I even sent 90,000?
01:02:46
Speaker
Have I ever received 90,000 in total?
01:02:48
Speaker
And then once you start scaling, it's like, oh, yeah.
01:02:51
Speaker
Yes, probably.
01:02:53
Speaker
And
01:02:53
Speaker
I mean, yeah, you know, over the course of a long time, that doesn't count how many are like auto archived, you know, like you get to the point where it's like, click here to search more on server.
01:03:02
Speaker
I have done that before because I have gone back as far as like, you know, 2015, 2012 to find the answer to the question that someone has asked me.
01:03:13
Speaker
So yeah, all good.
01:03:14
Speaker
All right.
01:03:15
Speaker
Well, thank you.
01:03:15
Speaker
Any final thoughts before we close out?
01:03:18
Speaker
I think just, you know, I will say this, particularly to new professionals.
01:03:24
Speaker
Clearly, I think we have shown that it really does not matter how you choose to manage your email.
01:03:30
Speaker
The point is you have to manage it.
01:03:33
Speaker
You have to stay on top of it.
01:03:34
Speaker
You know, it does not matter how many more communication methods come out, what technology brings.
01:03:41
Speaker
As long as there are boomers and Gen Xers in the workplace, you're going to have to email.
01:03:46
Speaker
So if it's something that you...
01:03:49
Speaker
are struggling with, if it's something that you are not good at, or if you are like me and you are fine having a gigantic inbox, even if people make fun of you and that works for you, embrace that.
01:04:01
Speaker
But I think the key takeaway hopefully is that no matter how you do it, you've got to stay on top of your email and you've got to manage it because it's here to stay.
01:04:12
Speaker
Yeah.
01:04:14
Speaker
And to add to that, I would just say,
01:04:17
Speaker
Thank you, Maggie and JC, for sharing some of the tips and tricks y'all learned along the way.
01:04:22
Speaker
And my advice to the listeners would be to share your methods and how you manage with your supervised, your supervisees and your the people that come into your life as a professional just to kind of help us get some knowledge and find out what works for us.
01:04:39
Speaker
Because someone like myself at first email management, I didn't really know was a thing, but I really feel like I have people.
01:04:46
Speaker
to help me along my career that got me to this style now.
01:04:50
Speaker
Shout out to Jen.
01:04:51
Speaker
She really helped me.
01:04:52
Speaker
So just, you know, be that person for someone else and share, share, share.
01:04:57
Speaker
All right.
01:04:58
Speaker
Well, I want to thank Maggie and Monique for joining us today to talk, of all things, their email inboxes.
01:05:04
Speaker
Please reach out to them and thank them via their preferred social media contact listed in the show notes.
01:05:10
Speaker
As our guest today demonstrated, there is no one right way to be successful at managing the inbox, and you can be successful with some intentional strategies.
01:05:19
Speaker
Have you ever sat in a meeting and thought, quote, this was a total waste of my time?
01:05:25
Speaker
If so, you'll definitely want to check out next month's episode because I'll be joined by Apefa Cooper to discuss an article she published in the Journal of College and University Student Housing called The Price of Hiring Resident Assistants, an Analysis of Human Capital, Opportunity Costs, and Personnel Wages.
01:05:42
Speaker
You may recognize Apefa from episode three of the podcast, and she will be our first repeat guest.
01:05:49
Speaker
It's going to be a fun time quantifying the actual costs of hiring our student staff, both in terms of personnel hours and their associated wages.
01:05:57
Speaker
The article is linked in the show notes, so I encourage you to get a jump on the article by reading it in advance.
01:06:04
Speaker
And with that, I say to you, good day.