Last week, a bookstore vendor left me a voicemail and then immediately emailed me. And the instructional design team. And the college dean. I really dislike that style of communication and the vendor was acting on outdated information (we no longer use his book).
None of this was urgent but he acted as if it required immediate action.
This is fairly common in bookstore vendor communication, but it reminded me of a former supervisor who operated in a constant state of frenzy. One day, I saw a call on my office phone as I was stepping out to go to the bathroom. Being a human being with biological needs, I continued on to the bathroom. By the time I returned from what was a reasonably quick journey, I had an email, a voicemail on both my work and cell phones, and a text message.
We later had a clarifying conversation following that about two things:
(1) I don’t answer the phone in the bathroom.
(2) Trust matters.
The most reasonable choice is one method of communication, followed by waiting on a reply. Assume the best of everyone working for you until you have a reason not to! (And to be clear, this person rarely waited more than an hour or so for me to reply!)
The issue in this case was rarely the need for a quick reply, but rather a desire for instant communication. As a professor, I very rarely experience urgent or emergent situations that demand that level of communication. Even as an administrator, that was exceedingly rare! There are people in every industry who I believe are addicted to overcommunication and the sense of importance it can grant in a situation. For others, I think they just are just so used to being in “go mode” that they can hardly remember what it feels like to relax a bit. Or they simply want to get their work done when they wan to, failing to recall others’ may have competing priorities for their timeline.
And yet, our culture seems to be obsessed with constant replies. On July 4, my spouse and I were out biking before it got to be unbearably warm. Our town has a limited trail of golf cart/bike/walking paths and, as is often the case, we passed a walker on our way. We typically wave or issue a friendly “good morning!” even to the grumpiest of fellow travelers. We waved this particular morning and received a friendly enough acknowledgment, but I noticed the man we passed had not one, but two cell phones with him for this walk. He was on what was clearly an “urgent” business call as we passed, while simultaneously scrolling the second phone, and attempting a vigorous walk.
I don’t know his business, of course, perhaps it was truly urgent. There are plenty of fields with urgency I won’t experience in my own work. Obviously, we experience life emergencies. And certainly if I need brain surgery, I want the best doctor in the Atlanta area to pick up when called!
But where we often make an error, I believe, is treating every situation as this level of urgent.
In doing so we create a lack of boundaries, expectations for employees to do the same, and a habit of never taking a moment to breathe! Our “on demand” world where I can Google nearly anything I want to know and receive instant answers has led us to treating each other as instant answer machines. That’s not what I want for my life. And again, it’s not necessary in a great majority of jobs.
All of us have a different tolerance for connectedness but I think I can reasonably argue that none of us need to be quite as connected as we are 24 hours a day! As I adjust to my new reality these days, one of the things I do not miss is near-constant Zoom meetings. The freedom of time to be flexible, to shape life to be rewarding, and to think and imagine has been healing and powerful for me. My best self is one not tethered to a traditional schedule or jumping at every cell phone ring. What I think we’re seeing fairly consistently in the research of a post-Covid world is no one’s best self is found in adhering to a rigid schedule with a never-ending high-demand responsive posture. Again, there are times for quick action but those are exceedingly rare when we’re honest about it.
When you constantly follow up in every method possible you send the message that you do not respect other people’s time and boundaries. If you have a Pavlovian response to your text message alert, you are not setting your own boundaries or honoring them well. When you are a supervisor or manager, the message you send matters perhaps even more. You send the message that people need to be constantly available and immediately available to you at all times – even when you say otherwise. This is extremely unhealthy for all parties. And again, unless you’re the one tracking the neurosurgeons down, largely unnecessary.
To be clear, our culture is so focused on quick replies and instant reward and phone-based dopamine hits we all tend to do this in some way – professionally and personally. It’s also important to acknowledge there’s some privilege and cultural capital built in for most who can push back on this nature. I’ve been at my university 17 years and my role allows me to disconnect in the ways that I do. But also this is essentially healthy boundary setting (more here and here). During my administrative stint, I also made the ability to disconnect a condition of my acceptance of the deal offered to me. With rare exception, I ended my day on time and ignored email until the next day. When matters were more urgent, I was happily available but otherwise I honored what allows me to be a human in her best mental shape. And while yes, I had a boss who respected my boundary, it was mine to set to start.
I’m committed to my own boundaries, but also to being a person who assumes others have them too. I will never expect anyone to answer my call while they’re using the facilities! My hope is that by modeling solid boundary-setting behavior and encouraging others to do the same, I can make a tiny bit of change in my world.
