Tag Archives: email

Dearest Principal

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I mentioned in my podcast with Dean Shareski that a favourite part of my job is asking myself, “How do I get to ‘Yes’?” when students come to me with big ideas and challenges that are not easy accommodate in a school. Yesterday I had an easy one, any easy ‘Yes’ when a student came to me wanting us to purchase a silk screen printing kit.

The student came to my office with the pitch just a couple minutes before I was set to have an online meeting. I told her that I had the meeting coming up and asked if she could email me, and one of my teachers, and explain why this was something good for the school, and to provide me with an Amazon link to the kit she wanted to purchase. Knowing the kid, I probably should have expected what I got from her 35 minutes later, but still, I had to chuckle at her email. Here it is in full. If you don’t want to read it all, the funniest ‘justifications’ were #12 and #15. Also noteworthy is #6, her commitment to make it easier for others to use.

Dearest Mr.Truss,

We have gathered here today to discuss the impacts a screen printer would serve this school, If you kindly agree to the purchase.

PROS

Number one. It will elevate the school’s shirt making/crafting personality. As you may know the school already own a Cricut (only cuts one colour) and a sublimation printer (only prints on white polyester shirts). We need to fill an obvious gap. We need a tool that can print multiple colours on a darker coloured shirt. A screen printer would be able to achieve this and not only that but….

Number two. It saves on material/waste used. As you may or may not have noticed but the Cricut requires the user to weed our bits of material that is unwanted in a design, creating lots of little bits of garbage. The sublimation printer uses entire sheets of paper per design. The screen printer however would not add to the amount of waste produced from our shirt making machine collection. 

Number three. I have talked with Mr.Hopkins and he thinks it’s a good idea. He mentioned that he would consider making it a media arts project so other student would be able to learn how the process works. 

Number four. The screen printer is not even a machine tbh. It’s literally just a frame and some ink. So it wouldn’t take up much space in the classroom. 

Number five. Though you might think that the ink will be messy, I assure you that I will personally make sure that anyone using it will have the proper coverage on the surfaces they’re working on. 

Number six. I will create a document with step by step instructions so people can refer to it if they need reminders or instruction on how to work it. 

Number seven. Because the screen printing screens are reusable and because screen printing itself is long lasting. It opens the possibility to mass produce clothing. Similar to the pink shirt day assembly line, we could possibly make clothing or designs for the school. 

Number eight. The Amazon kit that I am proposing provides a light. We could use the light for Media Arts as well. 

Number nine. Your students will be amazed. Incoming students will be impressed with the amount of tools at their disposal. There are many students who are interested in fashion, so they could perhaps use this new system to create their own clothing designs. 

Number ten. It does not require the use of the heat press. Unlike the Cricut and sublimation printer you won’t have to worry about students burning or pinching themselves in a hot press. 

Number eleven. The kit itself is reusable, with the photo emulsion remover you’ll be able to put different design on the screen, so you won’t have to spend more money on more screens. And even if, for whatever reason it does need a new screen, you can probably go to fabricana to get some cheaper screen and purchase it by the yard. 

Number twelve. If you desire I could make u a complimentary shirt. 

Number thirteen. If you’re gonna mass produce shirts for the school, maybe you could create shirts to sell to other people and earn more than the money you invested into this kit. I’m just saying, you’ve got students who are good graphic designers, it may be time to put them to work. 

Number fourteen. Mr. Sarte was talking to me about how beneficial a screen printer could be last year, so he’ll probably be happy if you get it too. 

Number fifteen. As a student I really value my time, but I’m sure you can imagine how much time it has taken me to write this email, thus i think it is important and worth my limited time. I could be working on my UBC personal profile right now…..

Number sixteen. This screen printer will bring you’re students closer together. It is with this screen printer that we will become an even tighter knit community. I mean you could create intramural shirts with this thing. 

CONS

Number one. It doesn’t come with yellow ink, so could we please get some so we’ll have all the primary colours and can mix different colours from there?

Thank you for considering this purchase. I’d be deeply grateful if you gifted the school with a screen printer. 

Here is a link to the Amazon kit that has all the tools we would need. [Link to item]

Here is a link to some yellow ink. [Link to item]

Much appreciation,
[Student full name]

All that for a $180 purchase of an item the whole school can use. Here was my response:

Thank you for using your valuable time for this proposal [Student name]!

My concern isn’t the cost of the purchase, but rather the quality.
I’ve asked a few teachers if this will do, or if we should spend a bit more on a kit that is more durable/better quality… You too can make suggestions (if you have time).

Thanks,
Dave

If I didn’t have a meeting that I had to attend just a couple minutes after this student came to my office, this would probably just have been a short conversation and an easy ‘Yes’. As much as the bad timing created a lot more ‘work’ for the student, I’m glad that it happened this way. I think it’s a valuable process for a student to through, and if I’m honest, reading her email was the highlight of my day.

The right to disconnect

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I’ve already shared my vampire rule for email:

“After 6 PM staff only get emails from me if the email is invited in. In other words, if they have asked me a question and want an answer, then a response has been invited. But if that invitation for a response isn’t there, I delay email delivery until the next morning.

So like a vampire at the front door, I can’t enter (with email) if I have something to share that is not initiated (and therefore invited in) by my staff. New topics are set to be delivered early the next morning.”

Yesterday a parent wanted me to contact one of my online teachers, who is on her last week of summer holidays, to get her son started in a course. I said no. I told the parent that I would send a scheduled message to the teacher the first day back (and I did), but that I was not interrupting my teacher’s holidays.

The Australia government just protected employees “right to disconnect”. According to a CNN report, “As of Monday, people won’t have to answer out of hours calls, texts, or emails.”

Laws are one way to ensure it, but I don’t think we need laws to be thoughtful and respectful about work/life boundaries. I think we can choose thoughtfulness over convenience, and be respectful of people’s time and attention. Like I mentioned to the parent (who was very understanding), if I interrupt a teacher’s holiday for this, there is no specific line I can draw to respect the teacher’s rights to a holiday.

We can all probably draw better boundaries between work and the rest of our lives, but what’s more important is that no matter where we draw our own lines does not allow us to choose for others too. Regardless of where our lines are, we need to be respectful of other people’s rights to unplug and disconnect from work when they are away from work.

Block and Move to Junk

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I might have shared a similar rant before, but I had to deal with this a few times last week and I hope at least one person in sales will learn from this.

If you cold email me with a product or service when we have had no relationship beforehand, that’s a cold call, it’s a virtual knock on a strangers email door. I find it annoying. I understand it’s hard to get your product in front of people and while I don’t like it much, I tolerate it.

However, when you then follow up with an email saying, “I haven’t heard back from you…” Well now that’s just rude. I don’t owe you anything for taking my unsolicited time to look at and maybe even read your first message. You didn’t hear from me because I’m not interested. How many thousands of ‘I haven’t heard back from you’ emails do you have to send to get a positive response? I bet it’s astronomically low. I bet your time would have been better used elsewhere.

On Friday, I got a call from someone who had sent me an email and a follow up. The only reason it got through my secretary is because the product name had the word ‘class’ in it, my secretary thought the voice sounded like a student, and I said to put it through instead of asking her to take a message like I usually do. When he started in with, “Hi, I’m [Name] from [Company], I’m not sure if you’ve had a chance to look at my last 2 emails…” I was already done. I was actually politer than I needed to be and started into a routine I’ve gotten pretty good at. I start with ‘We’ve gone through a lot of changes in the last while and I’m not interested in adding anything new at this time… and I go on for about 10 more seconds on double speed and end with, ‘I wish you all the best but we really are not interested, thanks, bye’. And I hang up even if the person has time to respond.

No, if I didn’t respond to your first email then I’m not interested in your product or even a free trial. A follow up email won’t help. A follow up email then phone call is doubly obnoxious. In fact, you can be sure of two things. First, I don’t want to work with you even if your product is great. And second, I won’t see a third email from you because I’ve blocked you and moved your email to junk. If enough of us did that after second unsolicited cold-call emails, that company email address might even find itself on the wrong side of spam filters… and I’m ok with that because if their first email wasn’t spam to begin with, their second email was definitely was.

Buried in messages

I hate email. It’s a monster, and right now it’s a HUGE monster for me. I’m just surfacing from the longest leave I’ve ever taken from work. I was heavily medicated until late last week and choose to be ‘completely off’ rather than working from home. I’ve never done that before. I’ve always worked while away, and did my best to keep up. But the medication was enough that I lacked judgement and knew better than to try and communicate (or even drive). So, as I look to return to work this week, I see that I have 840 unread emails. That would have been larger if I hadn’t peeked at a few (hundred) along the way, but I never once tried very much Now it’s time.

I know that hundreds will be ones I can just delete. I know that some will be informational and I can read and delete, or file away. I know that some will be ‘ball drops’ where I should have read and followed up with days or even weeks ago, although I did have an auto-response to contact the office. And I know it will take longer than this week to get through them all.

What I hope happens is that most of them are just destined for the delete folder and I can see just how unimportant email is compared to everything else I need to do at work. My direct team that I work with communicate with me on Microsoft TEAMS and they have been very respectful of me being away… so there won’t be a lot there that is overly urgent, especially with a very competent leader assisting while I was away. So, I’ll pick away at it, starting tomorrow. Today I joined my team online for a Pro-D session and then after a short nap I joined my PAC meeting remotely as well. My eyes are blurry and it’s off to bed early tonight. Hopefully the email monster will be tamed by early next week.

Time off stress

It’s accumulating. The work I need to get done is compounding as I take some time off. I’ve been taking some high strength meds and my mind is not always clear. Meanwhile email and work accumulates.

I’ll have to spend time catching up today even though I won’t be going into work today. I’m adjusting to the meds, I’m feeling more discomfort than pain, and I hopefully won’t sleep away the day like I did yesterday.

It’s challenging missing work, and impossible to let work go enough to take a day off without thinking about what I’m missing and what I need to do. It sometimes feels like it’s more work to take time off than it is to go to work while not feeling my best. My body is getting the rest it needs, my mind is just getting stressed about everything I’ve got to get done at work… and the email just keeps coming faster than I can deal with.

It’s really hard to take sick days completely off, work adds too much stress to time off.

Time for a break

It’s the last day before March Break and it’s going to be a long day. My final ‘to do’ list is quite big and my goal is to get it done and not take it into the break. Sometimes these holidays sneak up on me, like this one. Other times I am counting down the days. But despite the fact that this two-week holiday seemed to come so quickly this year, I can tell that I need a break.

It’s a reset for me. A chance to rest my aching back. A chance to listen to a fictional novel. An opportunity to visit my parents. And most importantly, a chance to switch work off for a little bit. The last semester of school from March to June is always a whirlwind of non-stop activity and this break is the preparation for it.

My brain won’t totally let work go on this break, but unlike a weekend, I will be able to go a couple straight days without thinking about work. I’ll put my vacation response on email, and I’ll not be checking email daily. I used to not do this, but over the years I’ve realized that when I actually let myself take a break, I come back more rejuvenated and ready for the homestretch.

So while I’ve got a long day ahead of me, I hope to leave work at work and take some time completely off this holiday. The test of this will be my daily writing… how much of it will show that work is still on my mind? We’ll know in a couple weeks!

Email Fail

I think email is broken.

1. Spam – it’s not just annoying, it’s dangerous and people are scammed all the time. Sometimes you just need to click a link and you are in trouble. I’ve seen stats ranging from 45-84% of all email being spam. While spam filters might block a lot of this, too much still gets through.

2. Unsubscribe – how many things have you not subscribed to that you have to unsubscribe from? And sometimes the unsubscribe process is the way that spammers know they have a working email and so they target you more. I’ve resorted to ‘block sender’ to unsubscribe from subscriptions that I didn’t sign up for.

3. Unsolicited invitations – worse still is the follow-up, “I don’t know if you saw my first email.” I take the time to block sender when I get these. I don’t owe you a reply when I don’t know you and you cold call me through email. I didn’t miss your email, I wasn’t interested the first time, and I’m just annoyed the second.

4. “Thank you.” – You want to thank me, please do so by not sending me an email thank you. Thank you’s are very polite in conversation, they are just another email adding to my inbox when sent digitally. I know this sounds cranky, but unless you are sending me a hilarious gif that says in some way, ‘Hey, I was so thankful I found this to make you smile’, then save yourself the effort and just don’t reply with a ‘Thanks’.

5. Reply All – Hitting Reply All should require effort, such as a double check to make you think about it:

It is way too easy to Reply All, and this is used far too often. Whenever possible, I blind cc emails when they go to a lot of people and might solicit a Reply All. Sometimes I wish Reply All wasn’t even an option. For the amount of times I’ve used it, I would still be saving time if I had to type everyone’s email in to reply to all, but then also avoided receiving so many in my inbox because it was equally hard for everyone else to send them.

6. Email doesn’t stop – I have a vampire rule for email that I follow: Unless someone that works for me asks a question or needs my help (invites me in), then I’m not allowed to enter their inbox on weekends or after 6pm on a work day. It is annoying how many steps/clicks it takes to delay an email delivery until the next morning, but I’ll do it to avoid sending someone an email when they won’t be dealing with it until the next work day anyway. I rather inconvenience myself than add work to people at or after dinner or on their weekends. Even if I’m sharing a useful resource, it can wait until the next morning. I wish more people did this. If someone wants to think about work on their time off, it should be because they want to, not because a work email came in to interrupt them at home.

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In a blog post titled Finding Balance, that I wrote over 8 years ago, I created and shared the image above and I said,

“Email is not a productivity tool. It is a poorly used form of communication that engulfs productivity time and requires a disproportionate amount of our lives.”

In the past 8 years I haven’t seen any innovation in email and it still hinders more than helps productivity. Currently I use Microsoft Teams with my work teams and tell them that I will check messages there before email. At least this tool lets me contextualize the messages and so prioritizing my teams is easier than looking at the most recent email that has come in. But email still sucks too much of my time for the value that it does (and mostly does not) return.

Essentially, email has failed, and I would love to see it go away in the same way the fax machine did.

Spam and the end of my contact form

I’ve had a contact form on my blog since 2007. For the last few years, this has only been used to spam me: ‘Improve your SEO’; ‘I notice the content of this page and think you’d like to backlink to us… we’ll pay you’; ‘Would you like to become a distributor for…’; and even; ‘I’m horny’ with a link to some porn, dating, or mail order bride site. I can’t remember the last time someone used it to actually contact me for any legitimate reason.

Instead of deleting my contact page, I just deleted the contact form, and the first line on the page is:

Would you like to contact me? Great! I’m @datruss on Twitter. You can also leave a comment on my daily blog, “Daily-Ink“.

Hopefully I don’t drive spammers to my blog, in which case I’ll have to change that too. It’s a shame that there is so much spam that I need to do this. I’ve read that as much as 85% of all email is spam. I think responses to contact forms would be much higher than that.

I wish there was a way to spam spammers such that their job became unmanageable. Instead of them filling our inboxes with a waste of time and energy, we should figure out a way to send them ‘smart’ spam back. If they want a back link from my site, they get hundreds of responses from hundreds of fake email addresses saying, ‘Yes I’ll add a back link to your blog’ and linking to other spammer’s websites and fake PayPal accounts. Drown them in so many fake but positive responses that they can’t determine what’s worth pursuing and what’s not.

Spam the spammers.

Without a definitive attack on their livelihood, they don’t have an incentive to stop.

But for now, they win… no more contact form from me. Fortunately, I’m pretty easy to get a hold of on social media and here on my Daily-Ink, and so while removing my contact form won’t affect people’s ability to connect with me, it will reduce how much spam comes my way.

Holiday message

After sharing our Superintendent’s holiday message attachment, and the link to find the latest district pandemic response, this was my holiday message from the principal that I sent out yesterday:

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Beyond our control:

It’s was a bit hard today to hear that new restrictions are being implemented or re-implemented to deal with the Omicron variant, and that we still seem to be in pandemic rather then endemic times. In the Fall of 2020 I ruled out any recovery for 2021 and started saying, “Things will start to get better in January 2022.” Even in July of this year, as we were dealing with the Delta Variant, I wrote in my daily blog that I was still optimistic. I thought my timeline left room for error, but I was wrong. Still, while things may not be better in January, I hold a lot of optimism about what 2022 holds in store for us. I hope you do too. 

Within our control:

We all need to do our part. The holiday season is a time when families get together, and students connect with friends. We all need to do this with caution and follow the requested guidelines. When we think about the good of the greater community, we all benefit. “Be safe, be smart,” is my new mantra I share with my daughters, and I share it with you now too. Let’s all do our part.

Story time:

I wear two hats as Principal, one for Inquiry Hub and one for Coquitlam Open Learning (COL). My responsibilities for COL dominated my attention for the past couple weeks. While I was running around trying to do too many things at once, one of my teachers reminded me to ‘be present’ when I was trying to do two other things while also carrying on a conversation with the teacher. This was a good reminder for me.

I have a mentor who I was talking to, many years ago, about trying to juggle everything I was dealing with. The metaphor I used was that I keep adding things to the back of my truck, and things were starting to fall off. My mentor said, “Stuff, not people.”

“Pardon?” I asked.

He responded, “Stuff, not people. When things get really busy, and you can’t do everything, things will ‘fall off the back of your truck’. When that happens, make sure that it’s stuff, and not people.”

My teacher reminded me of this. I was trying to do many things, and in my effort, I was not attentive to the person, while I was being attentive to the ‘stuff’ I was dealing with.

At this time when we don’t have a lot of control over imposed restrictions, and doing what’s best for our community, we do have control over our own attention. Students and parents alike, when you are having a conversation, put your devices away. Have technology free meals. Play a board game instead of watching TV. Be present with each other… that’s the best gift you can give each other.

Happy holidays to you all… Be safe, be smart,

Dave

Hard to not think about it

I visited my parents for almost 2 weeks and during that time I responded to a few emails. Most of these started with some sort of, “Sorry to bother you, but…”

I responded to those because they were timely things that needed a response to move forward. But there are 70+ emails that I looked at and needed more time for me to respond and/or didn’t require immediate response. I plan on getting through these later today or tomorrow (edited, I wrote this part before I started cleaning out my garage).

It’s hard to balance truly having a holiday that feels like a holiday and also doing the work that doesn’t stop because you are on holiday. Yes, I have my ‘I’m away from the office’ auto reply on. Yes, it gives a phone number to contact for assistance. Still, I feel obligated to catch up and clear out my inbox ever since I’ve kind of let it go a bit while visiting my parents.

What’s a little unusual is how long I’ve left this over the past couple weeks. Part of it is the need to have a real holiday after the year that was. But I juggle this with wanting to deal with it before it becomes a huge task. And I’m also wanting to enjoy the holiday time ahead. That said, despite letting my email correspondence slip while away, I know the email is there. I’ve read the subject headings, and I’ve felt the pressure to get to it. It’s hard not to think about it and so it’s better to just get it done rather than let it fester in my head as something needing my attention.

Times like this, while on holiday, I sometimes wish for a 9-5 job that doesn’t require any work coming home. I’d probably have less holiday time, but that holiday time would be completely work and work email free. Then I remember the satisfaction I get at work helping students and teachers, and I know that I’d probably hate leaving this job for a 9-5’er.

By tomorrow afternoon I’ll have my un-dealt-with email count down, and I will think less about it for a while. But I don’t know how to turn it completely off, and I don’t know how to see it there and not let it bug me in some small but significant way. I think that I need to take at least a week this summer where I don’t look at email at all… but somehow although I did a couple weeks with no social media that went well, I don’t think it will be as stress free to do with email.