News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on Encouraging a culture of written communication. Parent comment

Re:Encouraging a culture of written communication by jacques_chester on Monday May 11, 2020 @10:20PM (#23149914)
The standard tactic in such situations is to send another email. "Hey Gerald, thanks for coming to see me. My understanding of your points was X, Y and Z. Let me know if that's wrong".

Either they reply or don't. Either way you have established the paper trail. Possession might be nine tenths of the law, but the other ten tenths are coming to court with written evidence to defeat verbal evidence.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Encouraging a culture of written communication by brian_cunnie on Monday May 11, 2020 @11:36PM (#23150354)
I've written those types of emails you describe, Jacques: "My understanding is..."

It's an excellent way to leave an audit trail.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Encouraging a culture of written communication by ChrisMarshallNY on Tuesday May 12, 2020 @08:30AM (#23153201)
This guy dealt with that, simply by not replying or acknowledging the email, then claiming "That's not what I agreed to." His boss would support him. It worked, most of the time.

Scott Adams once wrote a book: "The Way of the Weasel." It has some techniques in there that are remarkably familiar.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Encouraging a culture of written communication by jacques_chester on Tuesday May 12, 2020 @11:35PM (#23163209)
For sure, but sometimes the boss has a boss. Or takes you to HR. Or some other thing you didn't think of in advance. In all these cases it didn't matter tactically, but it did strategically.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Encouraging a culture of written communication by aurelianito on Tuesday May 12, 2020 @03:39PM (#23158703)
If that's the case, look for a new job. The current one is FUBAR.
[ Parent | on HN ]