I know that trick

Last week I sent a coworker an email that said, essentially, ‘hey, so, those five things you said you’d get to last month — any progress on those?’

(Because there is only so long I can be told ‘I’m definitely going to get to those this week’ before I at least want a *different* lie.)

What I heard back, two days later, was, ‘could you rank them by priority?’

Why? Are you only going to do one of them? I was so, so tempted to write back and just list all of them as #1. ALL FIVE ARE A PRIORITY, FOR CRYING OUT LOUD. YOU NEED TO DO THEM ALL.

As delaying tactics go, though, it wasn’t bad. By requesting additional info, my email could get bumped out of the queue and sent to the end of the line again. It buys time, at least a couple of days — and it’s a classic strategy for anyone who’s had to answer email inquiries, so I KNOW THAT TRICK.

Regardless, I sent the priority list back yesterday, so we’ll see what today brings!

Mirrored from The Marci Rating System.