[aworks]

I'm a retired software manager. Email was inherent to the job as the primary way to communicate with people in far-flung countries. I'm guessing I spent 20% of my time in my inbox. Unfortunately, it wasn't in consecutive, large blocks but minutes of time interspersed with meetings, reading, etc. I tried and failed to read email only in larger sessions (although I did sit next to a manager on a plane once who plowed through their email in a single 3-hour session).

When I retired, it took me several years to refine my email use. I finally figured out Google inbox with Primary, Update, etc. tabs were my friend. I had to give up the habit of treating each email with intent. Maybe 1% require a thoughtful response, 10% are worth reading and the rest can be ignored. That was not true for work email, though.

[xp84]

I’m a software manager at present - honestly I just ignore email. I do get some emails from customers, but they’re supposed to be communicating through proper channels so their customer success managers need to at minimum be on cc. So if anything is important people can Slack me (including to say “check your email for…”), and if there’s an action needed, I’ll click the little bookmark to add the message to the “Later” section till the issue has been addressed. I won’t in any way claim that I’m well organized, but I am proud that I don’t need to spend more than 20 minutes a week on email, because I hate email.

[dxdm]

> customer success manager

These words are so funny and so sad at the same time.

Sorry for going off on a tangent, but seeing them used together unironically always has a fingernails-on-chalkboard effect on me.

I know you didn't invent them, it's probably what that role really is called where you work. I've worked there, too, in places that have a "customer success" team.

It doesn't have to be universal, but at least in my experience, in places that use these names, customers aren't successful, at least not by conscious design and effort, and their "success manager" ain't no manager, either.

It's one of these icky corporate euphemisms that make everything around them a little sadder. But it's also a bit fun, because of the immense silliness.

Alright, off-topic rant over.

[king_phil]

You basically reinvented e-mail in slack