Send a lot of emails? Try this trick
I work in a construction field and one of my responsibilities is to locate companies that are bidding on a project AND find the right person to send OUR quote for a certain project. Here’s what I’ve developed over the years.
1) I always use a “read receipt”. If the person never responds at least I can prove I contacted that person/company.
2) I use a standard email and have created a folder with about a dozen emails that I customize to the needs. This makes sure I say the right things and ask the right questions every time.
3) I use a good subject line – that I modify to each company (more later) such as “ 79 Bottles Brewery bidding 10-08”. The people I am emailing are extremely overloaded and very quick to read / not read an email. If my subject line has something they recognize they’ll be more likely to read and respond. The date tells them how fast they need to do something.
4) After making my template and storing it in the folder relating to that project I open it and enter the company name in front of the subject line just before I enter the emails I’m sending to. So, in the example above I’ll have “Smith Construction – 79 Bottles Brewery”. This tells them I’ve made a message just for them AND when the read receipt comes back, I can quickly notate that they got it.
5) I send the email to EVERY SINGLE address I have in my database for that Company. I don’t care if this person is in accounting or this person is the president of the Company. SOMEONE will respond. It also helps me to clean up the database. When responses come in I check the addresses and phone numbers and update as necessary. When an email bounces I don’t always delete it because there’s underlying “history” with that person/company. I will notate between their first and last names (Bounced 093020). Next time I hit that company I know not to use that email. If ALL of the email addresses for the company become outdated I change the Company name by adding a % at the front. This tells me I need to either check their website and obtain new data or call to get new people added to my database. I have 13k Companies in a database that’s been in operation for over 4 years so there is always updating that needs to be done! (I do this in my spare time – ha ha – when there isn’t a more pressing task at hand.)
This process takes a little while to set up, but in the long run, saves a BUNCH of time for me and I can email a long list very quickly. Email me at [email protected] if you want additional help or an example of one of my templates.
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Employee Response to Feedback
Hi everyone. I supervise a newer staff member. They have a front-line role. They have done a fairly good job. There is some room for improvement. The employee made an error. It was the second time they made this type of error (checked in with them the first time with process), and this time it affected more employees and clients. I worked with the staff member to resolve it. I set aside some time to talk the next time they were in the office, and I had given them a heads-up. We met in an office. I used a friendly tone. I asked them if they could share what happened so I could understand their perspective and process. I reflected it back. I asked how they thought they might approach it if a similar situation happened again. They gave a thoughtful response. I affirmed and added one other thing they could consider. I wrapped up by mentioning I understood they were trying to help, and I expressed appreciation that they worked with me to resolve the situation. My feedback to the employee has been mostly positive, but this error needed to be addressed. A short time later, the employee messaged me, when I was at a meeting, to say they weren’t feeling well and had to leave. They sent a note that evening to say that they would be out for the second half of the week, which seemed weirdly specific. My sense was it seemed almost a little passive aggressive? It just seemed odd. Under the circumstances, they won’t need to provide a doctor’s note. They also have a habit of not coming in Fridays. I am wondering if people have suggestions about how to respond. I also wouldn’t want this kind of response to feedback to become a pattern for them.
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Feeling sad after giving notice.
I was hired in a role in July. The start was extremely rocky and the onboarding process was basically nonexistent. I’m pretty out of my depth with the content of the position a lot of the time, which has made it feel like an uphill struggle.
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Do you all feel like jobs are being taken through nepotism?
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I am struggling in my new role...I know I should be greatful to be employed but everyday is a fight with my IS team on getting work done.
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But when I bounce off other people they say I'm not crazy.
I'm ready to leave my job but know this is a hard market.
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Defining on call pay.
Hi all. Looking for some advise here.
This is my first job in IT and the first time I’ve experienced working in an on call environment. I feel that I am entitled to on call pay and here is why.
Here is some background.
I work at a start up company (WFH) and am on a small team of 3 plus our boss. we go on a rotation every three weeks for a entire week for anything that comes up that’s considered urgent and after hours. Urgent requests or urgent pages are pretty infrequent. But when they do come up I step in, handle the situation, and I log that time in my time card. I’ve been able to do this mostly from my personal cell phone (also being utilized as an approved work phone). Last week I was on call and in the evening I received a page while at happy hour with friends. I acknowledged the message and in this case it was urgent (one of the main systems was down) but it wasn’t anything that I could necessarily do to fix it (that falls on another dept). I sounded the alarm to engage the correct depts and also let my boss know. My boss then asked me to look something up and I let them know that I did not have my laptop with me and that I was responding from my phone.
The next week during our team meeting the boss brought up some ground rules for our on call time. 1) Making sure we acknowledge all requests within the hour & 2) making sure we bring our laptops with us if we are going to be out and about. At this point I feel it is completely unfair to ask us to be on standby plus be within a radius of 30 min from our “office” aka our home/have our laptop with us unless we are receiving on call pay. Things like going out to a bar or a concert would be totally out of the question Or maybe even a long drs apt for those 7 days would all be things I can’t do if we are working under those ground rules. I have another friend who does the same thing I do in IT and he is paid On Call time. Although he takes inbound calls and I do not. So he is at his desk all weekend but gets paid that entire time.
Should I not be entitled to On Call Pay with this scenario? Is that just how on call works and I’m totally unaware? Can someone with experience in the IT space or labor laws weigh in?
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