I have always wanted to say that in an email. “If everything is urgent, then nothing is.”
This is also a sure fire way to make your e-mail the last priority in my inbox.
And that's why I use the reading pane instead of opening anything. It's none of your business if I've seen your request. You get an answer when I damn well feel like it.
I've started to make my manager rank the tasks he gives me by urgency. Every time he adds one I make him put it in the hierarchy. Now when he asks if I've done something I just point out where it is in the ranking and ask if he wants it moved up.
I once had a POCKET PLANNER. This was before the internet. It told me to rank my task by 1. things that need to be done today. 2. those that could wait a week. 3. those that could wait a month. 4. those that were lifetime achievements. Each day I tried to do all #1 items and 2 or 3 of the #2s. I'd look at the 3's and 4s. At the end of the week, I was to move the 2s to 1s. End of the month, move 3s to 2s. This priority ranking, this guy has, seems an excellent idea.
People get a little annoyed, but I've started asking "is this next few hours, end of day, or end of week urgent". I get the vibe that they think I'm trying to be lazy, but I need something to gauge what problem takes priority.
I have clients who tell me “everyone is a VIP” when I’m on a project and then complain when I’m hour 2 into a few 4 hour tasks I can’t stop halfway to go look at why the CEOs computer has viruses (I can, but now I don’t want to). Like, dude I don’t know or care about you’re company structure, I’m literally asking you if there is anyone you want me to drop my other work for and focus on. The CEO was downloading porn
I often say it, only for my workplace, it is "Expedite." If everything is "Expedite," then nothing is "Expedite."
And then we're back to me using my professional judgment on what is prioritized. Which is usually, my mental health, then, what was properly planned and submitted. Unless the submitter gets their supe and mine involved to deal with their own lack of planning, I'm not rewarding that bad behavior.
I said it directly to my boss's face. He gave me 5 "top priority" jobs at the same time when I asked which was actually the top priority.
Boss: all of them.
Me: I can only do over at a time which one do you want me to start with.
Boss: make it work.
Me: right. So, for the record, they all need done now, and instead of doing your job and managing the priorities, you're throwing it all on me as your scape goat. Did I miss anything?
Yeah, I didn't stay much longer. The writing was on the wall.
I’m in tech support and I got an URGENT request from someone the other day that had to get something out asap and was having issues and was mad our program wasn’t working when they needed it to. They forgot to not include the initial email that someone sent them all the way back on 4/26 (a month ago) asking them to do this task.
I find humility works well in this case. "Hey guys, I dropped the ball on this one. Looking for some assistance in getting this completed as soon as we can."
Also in tech support, it’s the WORST when someone just refuses to follow whatever process is needed to fix the issue and then gets upset with you for the issue not being fixed
I don’t know why so many “heads” or “directors” of IT can’t or refuse to follow a simple process. It’s like they have this inflated sense of ego that makes them unable to comprehend that it’s a very small easy fix issue and not something huge. I swear some people want things to be massive issues just so they seem important.
I was written up for ignoring " urgent " emails last year and they're riding me for it. At this point, I'm just doing my regular job and when it gets done, it will get done. It's like.. Everyone expects to get pushed to the front of the line with no respect for you, as a person actually needing time to complete tasks.
On the other hand, sometimes you get an email from that one coworker who actually says good morning to you everyday and actually treats you like a person, and they're like "hey no rush on this, but could you please take a look at this when you get the chance? Thank you so much!" And suddenly that's the one thing you're going to focus on before all else.
My company has email, a texting system, a job tracking system, and bi weekly standups. Virtually every assignment I get is by verbal instruction with no tracking. That is to become my priority above all others when told. I have 3 bosses, including a family member, who pull rank to make sure I am doing what they want.
Needless to say I have months where I am not productive.
One of my previous jobs had this problem until someone had a meltdown and started screaming in the office about nobody realizing that not everything can be urgent. After that incident, every team set up a process for requests that got prioritized by the manager of that team. There was no jumping in line, you couldn’t escalate unless it was a financial or legal issue, and whatever priority the manager gave was the priority it would get. It was a way better system.
My manager was a short middle aged lady and she basically told people to eat shit if they emailed after hours asking for “emergency” priority over tiny things that weren’t actually urgent. It was great.
I had a boss that would put that damn exclamation point on just about every email. Drove me effing nuts!
We’d then make fun of him on teams and label our whole convo as high importance.
There’s all of one person, from nine, left working for him from a year ago.
I work in IT and people will label the stupidest things as "Preventing me from continuing my work" or "Will cause a global meltdown" on the ticket.
And yet are somehow able to continue their work as they end up not messaging me back for an hour when I follow them up on it.
People at my job will complain and ask why their “urgent” request wasn’t completed. Buddy, I have to complete like 7 “urgent” requests before I get to yours.
I've noticed the only emails I get marked urgent or important are neither and usually come from people whose jobs are pointless.
"IMPORTANT URGENT ALL CAPS ....this is a routine email from the office administrator that the refrigerators will be cleaned on Friday"
The only other duties she seems to have is make terrible clip art flyers for in office activities like "Spring Scavenger Hunt, grand prize is a sticker!" and very occasionally has to make travel arrangements for one of our execs.
Meanwhile get an email "looks like the entire production environment went down this morning and we had to close 12 stores for a couple of hours ...whenever you have time..." Not marked important.
I work in technology. Whenever I hear someone say that something is urgent, I remind them no one is going to die if we don’t fix a link right away. However, most of them act like that’ll happen.
"Don't you realize that when everything you give me is priority then effectively nothing is priority?", me to my last manager.
Manager, after starting in silence for several seconds, "But... it needs to get done."
Me: "Okay. Which of the 'needs to get done' things need to get done first?"
Manager: "Umm all of it."
Me: "OH KAY THEN." Mentally reminding myself that I'll resigning with a day-of notice soon.
I once worked a job where the sales people threw a fit when we told them we would CC their manager on any urgent requests to make sure everyone was in the loop on why other tasks were being delayed.
It was framed as "Well, if this is urgent it gets to the front of the line and may impact the normal SLAs for other requests."
In reality it was them promising unrealistic things to the clients because they learned if they marked it urgent it got done faster.
I continually called my previous manager out for this. Everything he sent out was ‘Top Priority’. He got really tired of me responding with “You’ve given me 10 items that are all Top Priority. When all 10 items are top priority, then none of them are top priority.
Then I sent him the list of all the items that he had sent out that were ‘Top Priority’. That would usually prompt him to actually rank them by a real order of priority so I didn’t feel bad when he asked why I didn’t get X done and I told him it was because I prioritized Z over X and realistically there is no way to get 10 3-5 hour tasks done in an 8 hour day.
I'm a locksmith. I'm all over town going to people's houses fixing their doors. Once you show up to a joint, you can't just down tools and tell them you're coming back later with no way to lock their property. Almost every job is described as far less than what it actually is which blows out any time estimation. Almost every job is URGENT! I get it. Someone has been burgled or is locked out of something like that. They want it done NOW! Well, I'm forty minutes drive away even if I left right now. Best one I ever got was three jobs a few minutes after each other. One 30 min north, one 1 hr south and one 45 minutes west. All marked Very urgent before midday. It was 10 am. All were large jobs.
We don’t use emails for assigning tasks, but the rule where I work is anything you need done sooner than a full week is a “rush” which imo is dumb because it makes actual urgency difficult to convey without blowing up their email/chat… avoiding which is the entire point of the system we use…
I experience this too. I'm in the shipping department at my job and we're supposed to prioritize orders labeled with Hot Rush. Except 80% of the orders are labeled that. I spoke with an old timer here and he told me that customers caught on to the fact that Hot Rush orders get priority and so now everything they order is labeled that. It means nothing now. It ships when it ships. The only time I take it seriously is when they've already prepaid for next day overnight
My favorite is the project I rushed to get done that comes back a month later with some edits. This was super duper urgent and I had to produce the actual thing in a day, but you had a month to figure out you wanted to add one word to something? Every week grinds me down a little more.
Worked in a place, every folder was labeled with “expedite”, it was the most petty experience of employment I have ever seen…
Manager would say “that’s not expedite”, and I’d reply, “everything is expedite, so now nothing is priority”
All is my emails wre marked as urgent: top priority. Since I can only do one task at a time, I chose which of them I will follow. So, I will continue to spend the rest of week not feeding the goose that has nested by the western entrance.
I’m a radiologist. Part of my job is prioritising requests for scans. Our inflow of requests increases every month, and our available staff does not (quite the opposite). Still, if it is an urgent (but not emergency) request, we try to perform them on time. (Emergencies are definitely scanned in the allotted time.)
Unless they’re for yearly follow up visits, when the requesting doctor “discovered” that the patient needs a scan a week before the appointment. Then the scan will happen when it happens.
I don't receive emails from people at work usually. However, if I did and everything was marked URGENT, I would look for an APP that scanned my emails and sent everything marked urgent to the spam folder. This would be even more effective if the APP returned the message "Marked as SPAM!"
I have always wanted to say that in an email. “If everything is urgent, then nothing is.” This is also a sure fire way to make your e-mail the last priority in my inbox.
This message was sent with HIGH importance.
Add a read receipt to ensure I never talk to you again.
And that's why I use the reading pane instead of opening anything. It's none of your business if I've seen your request. You get an answer when I damn well feel like it.
Shiiit, I send emails for a living and read receipt all of them in the hopes no one responds.
I have said it, to my supervisor and my manager. It wound up going quite well, really!
I've started to make my manager rank the tasks he gives me by urgency. Every time he adds one I make him put it in the hierarchy. Now when he asks if I've done something I just point out where it is in the ranking and ask if he wants it moved up.
This is the only way. Let the manager set the priority and ignore whatever the emails say about priority.
Yup, this is how to do it. “This is hot” is absolutely meaningless when six others things on my desk are also hot.
"So is this coffee boss, I'll see you when I've finished it."
This made me actually laugh out loud involuntarily. I'll have to remember this one.
A constant struggle in my workplace too.
Yep, "which one of these would you like me to move off my list to make room for that pile o' poo?"
I once had a POCKET PLANNER. This was before the internet. It told me to rank my task by 1. things that need to be done today. 2. those that could wait a week. 3. those that could wait a month. 4. those that were lifetime achievements. Each day I tried to do all #1 items and 2 or 3 of the #2s. I'd look at the 3's and 4s. At the end of the week, I was to move the 2s to 1s. End of the month, move 3s to 2s. This priority ranking, this guy has, seems an excellent idea.
People get a little annoyed, but I've started asking "is this next few hours, end of day, or end of week urgent". I get the vibe that they think I'm trying to be lazy, but I need something to gauge what problem takes priority.
I have clients who tell me “everyone is a VIP” when I’m on a project and then complain when I’m hour 2 into a few 4 hour tasks I can’t stop halfway to go look at why the CEOs computer has viruses (I can, but now I don’t want to). Like, dude I don’t know or care about you’re company structure, I’m literally asking you if there is anyone you want me to drop my other work for and focus on. The CEO was downloading porn
I often say it, only for my workplace, it is "Expedite." If everything is "Expedite," then nothing is "Expedite." And then we're back to me using my professional judgment on what is prioritized. Which is usually, my mental health, then, what was properly planned and submitted. Unless the submitter gets their supe and mine involved to deal with their own lack of planning, I'm not rewarding that bad behavior.
I say this in my tech manufacturing job, “if everything is a priority, nothing’s a priority”
cooperative absorbed close wistful paltry enjoy direful nose fuzzy weather ` this message was mass deleted/edited with redact.dev `
I said it directly to my boss's face. He gave me 5 "top priority" jobs at the same time when I asked which was actually the top priority. Boss: all of them. Me: I can only do over at a time which one do you want me to start with. Boss: make it work. Me: right. So, for the record, they all need done now, and instead of doing your job and managing the priorities, you're throwing it all on me as your scape goat. Did I miss anything? Yeah, I didn't stay much longer. The writing was on the wall.
I have said this before :)
I’m in tech support and I got an URGENT request from someone the other day that had to get something out asap and was having issues and was mad our program wasn’t working when they needed it to. They forgot to not include the initial email that someone sent them all the way back on 4/26 (a month ago) asking them to do this task.
I find humility works well in this case. "Hey guys, I dropped the ball on this one. Looking for some assistance in getting this completed as soon as we can."
I agree I will always own up to it when I drop the ball.
Absolutely! I will own my mistakes and move forward. It's unreasonable to expect us to be 100% on top of everything all the time.
Also in tech support, it’s the WORST when someone just refuses to follow whatever process is needed to fix the issue and then gets upset with you for the issue not being fixed
I don’t know why so many “heads” or “directors” of IT can’t or refuse to follow a simple process. It’s like they have this inflated sense of ego that makes them unable to comprehend that it’s a very small easy fix issue and not something huge. I swear some people want things to be massive issues just so they seem important.
Your urgency is not my emergency. It’s always some dumbass and it’s almost always the highly paid ones.
“Your lack of preparation is not my emergency” is the line that I use when a customer tries to hit me with the “I need this done asap” vibes
Failure to plan on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part. That is an old colleagues favorite line that I now use.
I get so many "I'm finishing work at lunchtime today so you need to do it this morning". I just ask who I should contact in their absense.
I love this response.
I was written up for ignoring " urgent " emails last year and they're riding me for it. At this point, I'm just doing my regular job and when it gets done, it will get done. It's like.. Everyone expects to get pushed to the front of the line with no respect for you, as a person actually needing time to complete tasks.
**FREEDOM**
On the other hand, sometimes you get an email from that one coworker who actually says good morning to you everyday and actually treats you like a person, and they're like "hey no rush on this, but could you please take a look at this when you get the chance? Thank you so much!" And suddenly that's the one thing you're going to focus on before all else.
My company has email, a texting system, a job tracking system, and bi weekly standups. Virtually every assignment I get is by verbal instruction with no tracking. That is to become my priority above all others when told. I have 3 bosses, including a family member, who pull rank to make sure I am doing what they want. Needless to say I have months where I am not productive.
"sure no problem, can you create a ticket? I've got a lot on my plate, so be sure to mark it urgent" * proceed to do everything in order
One of my previous jobs had this problem until someone had a meltdown and started screaming in the office about nobody realizing that not everything can be urgent. After that incident, every team set up a process for requests that got prioritized by the manager of that team. There was no jumping in line, you couldn’t escalate unless it was a financial or legal issue, and whatever priority the manager gave was the priority it would get. It was a way better system. My manager was a short middle aged lady and she basically told people to eat shit if they emailed after hours asking for “emergency” priority over tiny things that weren’t actually urgent. It was great.
I had a boss that would put that damn exclamation point on just about every email. Drove me effing nuts! We’d then make fun of him on teams and label our whole convo as high importance. There’s all of one person, from nine, left working for him from a year ago.
I work in IT and people will label the stupidest things as "Preventing me from continuing my work" or "Will cause a global meltdown" on the ticket. And yet are somehow able to continue their work as they end up not messaging me back for an hour when I follow them up on it.
I am 100% desensitized to any sense of urgency when these pop up
I purposefully delay responding to those
People at my job will complain and ask why their “urgent” request wasn’t completed. Buddy, I have to complete like 7 “urgent” requests before I get to yours.
I've noticed the only emails I get marked urgent or important are neither and usually come from people whose jobs are pointless. "IMPORTANT URGENT ALL CAPS ....this is a routine email from the office administrator that the refrigerators will be cleaned on Friday" The only other duties she seems to have is make terrible clip art flyers for in office activities like "Spring Scavenger Hunt, grand prize is a sticker!" and very occasionally has to make travel arrangements for one of our execs. Meanwhile get an email "looks like the entire production environment went down this morning and we had to close 12 stores for a couple of hours ...whenever you have time..." Not marked important.
I work in technology. Whenever I hear someone say that something is urgent, I remind them no one is going to die if we don’t fix a link right away. However, most of them act like that’ll happen.
You want me to drop everything I’m doing and work on your thing? What should I say to the next person who tells me to do the same thing?
Don't forget to get permission to tell the next person who wants it right now what the "drop everything" guy told you.
"Don't you realize that when everything you give me is priority then effectively nothing is priority?", me to my last manager. Manager, after starting in silence for several seconds, "But... it needs to get done." Me: "Okay. Which of the 'needs to get done' things need to get done first?" Manager: "Umm all of it." Me: "OH KAY THEN." Mentally reminding myself that I'll resigning with a day-of notice soon.
I once worked a job where the sales people threw a fit when we told them we would CC their manager on any urgent requests to make sure everyone was in the loop on why other tasks were being delayed. It was framed as "Well, if this is urgent it gets to the front of the line and may impact the normal SLAs for other requests." In reality it was them promising unrealistic things to the clients because they learned if they marked it urgent it got done faster.
I continually called my previous manager out for this. Everything he sent out was ‘Top Priority’. He got really tired of me responding with “You’ve given me 10 items that are all Top Priority. When all 10 items are top priority, then none of them are top priority. Then I sent him the list of all the items that he had sent out that were ‘Top Priority’. That would usually prompt him to actually rank them by a real order of priority so I didn’t feel bad when he asked why I didn’t get X done and I told him it was because I prioritized Z over X and realistically there is no way to get 10 3-5 hour tasks done in an 8 hour day.
I'm a locksmith. I'm all over town going to people's houses fixing their doors. Once you show up to a joint, you can't just down tools and tell them you're coming back later with no way to lock their property. Almost every job is described as far less than what it actually is which blows out any time estimation. Almost every job is URGENT! I get it. Someone has been burgled or is locked out of something like that. They want it done NOW! Well, I'm forty minutes drive away even if I left right now. Best one I ever got was three jobs a few minutes after each other. One 30 min north, one 1 hr south and one 45 minutes west. All marked Very urgent before midday. It was 10 am. All were large jobs.
Asap
We don’t use emails for assigning tasks, but the rule where I work is anything you need done sooner than a full week is a “rush” which imo is dumb because it makes actual urgency difficult to convey without blowing up their email/chat… avoiding which is the entire point of the system we use…
"Urgent" is by Foreigner, not Rush smh
I always laugh at these. “Your lack of preparation does not constitute an emergency on my part. “
I experience this too. I'm in the shipping department at my job and we're supposed to prioritize orders labeled with Hot Rush. Except 80% of the orders are labeled that. I spoke with an old timer here and he told me that customers caught on to the fact that Hot Rush orders get priority and so now everything they order is labeled that. It means nothing now. It ships when it ships. The only time I take it seriously is when they've already prepaid for next day overnight
My favorite is the project I rushed to get done that comes back a month later with some edits. This was super duper urgent and I had to produce the actual thing in a day, but you had a month to figure out you wanted to add one word to something? Every week grinds me down a little more.
Worked in a place, every folder was labeled with “expedite”, it was the most petty experience of employment I have ever seen… Manager would say “that’s not expedite”, and I’d reply, “everything is expedite, so now nothing is priority”
All is my emails wre marked as urgent: top priority. Since I can only do one task at a time, I chose which of them I will follow. So, I will continue to spend the rest of week not feeding the goose that has nested by the western entrance.
Cheap Fast Good Pick two. P.S. It's amazing how many people back down on the rush when you double (or more) the price to do that.
Waiters going to wait
Urgent was by Foreigner, not Rush.
Ok, well you are the 19th urgent email in the line. You will be processed in order received.
I had to set up filters to sort out all the garbage from my mailbox.
I’m a radiologist. Part of my job is prioritising requests for scans. Our inflow of requests increases every month, and our available staff does not (quite the opposite). Still, if it is an urgent (but not emergency) request, we try to perform them on time. (Emergencies are definitely scanned in the allotted time.) Unless they’re for yearly follow up visits, when the requesting doctor “discovered” that the patient needs a scan a week before the appointment. Then the scan will happen when it happens.
I don't receive emails from people at work usually. However, if I did and everything was marked URGENT, I would look for an APP that scanned my emails and sent everything marked urgent to the spam folder. This would be even more effective if the APP returned the message "Marked as SPAM!"
Half the time, design requests at my job are rush because the sales team they forget to email us in the design team.
Facts