A simple matter of…

Unfortunately, one problem I have to deal with is people communicating with me via Skype.

These people often have not learnt that Skype is a _dreadful_ way to communicate:

• very poor logging
• no searching
• no way to mark messages as important or flag them todo (unlike email)
• extremely unpleasant to the network
• very disruptive to the recipient
  

Normally these conversations are _far_ better done by email as they don’t need real-time interaction.

However the thing that really, really, gets on my nerves are conversations that go along the lines of:

• [08:00] FredBloggs: Hi Adrian
• [08:00] Adrian: Hi Fred
• [08:10] FredBloggs: can I ask a question?
• [08:11] Adrian: sure
• [08:19] FredBloggs: (question follows)
  

Basically this wastes something like 20mins of time. Each interruption disrupts what I’m currently doing (losing probably 5-10mins by itself), then I’m hanging on, waiting for the question. Far better would be email, or at worst:

• [08:00] FredBloggs: Hi Adrian, (question follows)
  

I then get just the one interruption. To be honest, I think starting a conversation and then not paying attention to it (assuming the other participant replies quickly) is extremely rude. Not only is it selfish, but in pure financial terms it’s a waste of money as I’m normally contracted to the customer on a time basis.