For several years now I have been receiving requests for assistance or advise from people all over the globe on matters relating to research, selecting graduate schools/programs, starting a career in the field of international education and since I started IHEC Blog and posting to Twitter I’m starting to receive more and more requests from reporters wanting to interview me or requests from reporters wanting to locate certain data and/or people interview who are knowledgeable on their topic they are writing about, requests from publishers for book reviews as well as a whole host of other requests from people. About 2-3 weeks ago I decided to add the following vacation message to my IHEC Gmail account as there has been a notable increase in the number of e-mail messages I’ve been receiving the past 3 months:
“Thank you for your message. I appreciate your interest in my services and will reply to your message as soon as possible. International Higher Education Consulting and IHEC Blog are secondary projects to my family time, my work at the University of Chicago and my doctoral studies so my response time varies depending on my current work and research/writing loads.”
It’s flattering to receive all of these voice and e-mail messages and I work hard to helpful and to reply as quickly as possible. I currently have several e-mail messages in my inbox that require a response and some of the messages may be from IHEC Blog readers so please note that I will reply to you soon and I apologize for the delay. I welcome these messages as they often times provide a learning opportunity for me and a way for me help and to meet/network with new people! I’ve connected electronically with so many great colleagues via the various social/new media spaces where I find myself (and I’m including e-mail when I’m talking social/new media spaces) and I look forward to our paths crossing in person some day in the future. Many of the wonderful connections I’ve made over the years were made because I received a request for assistance or advice over e-mail.
Why am I posting about this to IHEC Blog?
Well, while I reply to and try to assist 95%+ of the messages I receive there are just some messages that I receive that I simply delete and never respond to. The following are two e-mail messages I recently received (Oct. 31st and today, Nov. 4th) from the same e-mail address that I thought I would copy and paste here to share as an example for possible discussion:
--Start October 31st message---
HELLO
I AM A STUDENT OF ENGLISH LITERATURE AND CIVLIZATION AND I AM PREPARING FOR MY DISSERTATION IN LITERATURE ABOUT THE SIGNIFICANCE OF AFRICANAMERICANS IN THE AMERICAN LITERARY IMAGINATION
BUT I DID NOT FIND CORRESPONDING INFORMATION
SO.IF YOU CAN HELP WITH SOME BOOKS,WEBSITES,OR AMY KIND OF DATA I WOULD BE GRATEFUL
I AM WAITING FOR YOUR ANSWER
--End October 31st message--
No response from me other than my automated reply which I mention above.
--Start November 4th message--
I AM STILL WAITING FOR YOUR ANSWER AND I NEED YOUR HELP
,BECAUSE OF TIME CONSTRAINTS MAY I RECEIVE IT AS SOON AS POSSIBLE PLEASE?
THANKS
--End November 4th message—
To be sure, this person and I certainly differ on how to communicate via e-mail. What I’m trying to determine is if I should be more sensitive to this person and chalk it (their rude and demanding e-mail messages) up to an intercultural miscommunication or if I should have different feelings about their e-mail messages? I’ve communicated with thousands of students from all over the world in my day job at the University of Chicago and based on my experience I’m not thinking this is an intercultural miscommunication.
Thoughts?
The number of e-mail messages from colleagues in the field and others to my international.ed.consulting@gmail.com seeking assistance and advise is tremendous (meaning I receive more than I can respond to) and greatly appreciated (I recieve quite a bit to my Univ. of Chicago address as well).
