One of my favourite parts of my job is working with a wonderful set of colleagues, and helping people out in all kinds of ways. This means I’ve ended up in a role where I’m in contact with a lot of people, and juggling helping out a lot of people, all with different priorities and deadlines and needs. I love thinking about communication, and communicating about communication, so I thought I’d write up some of my boundaries and guidelines for communicating with me at work!

Before I start, if you have any boundaries around communication, or particular ways you’d prefer I communicate with you, please do let me know! I will always aim to respect any boundaries and find mutually good ways of working together.

And firstly, whoever you are, you can call me Amy, no titles needed!

How to contact me

Email is best for anything important (e.g. drafts to review, participant concerns), explaining something longer, asking for something that will require a chunk of my time, sharing information to be stored (e.g. confirmation of study approval) or non-urgent things.

I have Outlook on my phone and check it regularly, but I don’t have my notifications on. I will sometimes spend time away from my emails, to do focused work for up to a half day.

I’m generally pretty on top of my emails so if you’re waiting on a response from me and I haven’t replied in a timeframe you think is appropriate, it is likely either:

1. It wasn’t clear how important/urgent it is – feel free to get in touch to clarify this (see “Asking for my time” below). We may disagree about what is an appropriate timeframe or the degree of importance/urgency, but if you make clear your expectations, that allows me to let you know if that isn’t something I can meet, and at least you’ll know where I stand. 
2. It’s outside of my working hours (see below, “Contacting me outside of working hours”)
3. It has genuinely slipped off my radar – in which case, please do send a follow-up email. I will appreciate it!

Teams is good for something that requires back-and-forth conversations (e.g. error checking some code), a quick question (e.g. is this the right form to use?), or notifying me of something needing my immediate attention – though I’m also happy with email, especially as Teams notifications aren’t the most reliable.

I typically respond to Teams messages immediately, unless I’m in a meeting/doing a chunk of focused work and it doesn’t seem urgent – so if you haven’t heard from me in a few hours, or it’s urgent, feel free to follow up in an alternative way, as likely I simply haven’t got the notification.

Please don’t WhatsApp/text/message me on FB about work-related issues, unless I’ve explicitly said it’s okay, or it’s a more social/interpersonal issue. If you send me something work-related, I will likely respond via email, during working hours. If you want to discuss something sensitive that you don’t want to put in an email, let me know (via email or popping by my office), and we’ll figure it out.

Tone of my emails

I always try to be polite in emails. I will sometimes fire off replies quickly, without adding a greeting and sign off every single time – a short email is not an indication of me being annoyed at all, just being busy! Anyone is welcome to do the same.

I sometimes write long emails when I think the detail and explanation is important. (This post might give an example of my tendency to explain things in detail…). I’m always happy to follow up with a discussion in person if you find long emails difficult.

I tend to write in a familiar way, with exclamation marks and without titles. I also like to be clear and direct, and will often highlight or underline things, as done here.

Contacting me outside of working hours

I don’t typically check my emails after 6pm or during weekends. If you need to be able to contact me regularly at evenings or weekends or may need to in an emergency, let me know and I will share an alternative way to contact me.

I never check my emails during my annual leave. I always have an out-of-office on annual leave, so you will know if I’m away. I try and put my annual leave dates in my email signature so if you need something from me beforehand, please ask.

If I’m on sick leave, I will hand over anything urgent via email as soon as I can and then I’m very unlikely to check my email again until I return, unless I specify. I will have an out-of-office reply on so you know if I’m sick.

I may offer/agree to check my emails for something specific during an evening, weekend, or annual leave (e.g. for a grant deadline, student deadline or related to a study participant) but you will need to let me know, in advance, because if you ask in the email itself, I won’t see it!

Popping by my office

You are always welcome to pop by my office. I will always make time for something urgent (e.g. an issue with a study visit happening). I pretty much always have time for a quick question – very occasionally I’m working to an urgent deadline and will have to say no. If it’s something likely to take over half an hour, it’s better to arrange a time with me, but you’re welcome to ask if I happen to be free.

If you anticipate wanting a meeting or my support with something (at a key point in a study, at a key point in your course) I will always appreciate arranging meetings in advance. It’s not essential – we all lose track of time sometimes – but it will mean I can give you plenty of time and be properly prepared to help you, and it lets me manage my time best.

Asking for my time

When asking for my time, in a message or in person, it’s always useful if you indicate what it’s about and the urgency/when you need a response. This helps me prioritise and get together whatever is needed to help you.

For example:

• Do you have a minute? The participant I’m testing in room 1 isn’t feeling well.
• Do you have a minute? I’m getting a weird code error.

• Could you send me your protocol for the healthy volunteer study? I’m trying to get mine submitted to ethics by the end of the week so if you can send it today that’d be appreciated!

• Could we have a meeting sometime next week to look over my analysis script? I need to present my results at a meeting on the 10th. I’m finding it confusing so an hour of your time to talk it through properly would be great.

• Could I ask you to look over a study proposal I’ve written? Not at all urgent, just sometime in the next few months.

I will endeavour to do the same.

Helping with errors in R

If you want help with a script error via email/Slack, let me know exactly what isn’t working i.e. the line of code that you start getting errors on, and the exact wording of the full error message.

If you’ve just set a whole script running in one go, go back and do it chunk by chunk so you can find the problem.

Ideally, if you’re using R Studio, send me a screenshot of your environment (at the point of the first error).

Also, let me know if you’ve ruled any problems out or tested anything (e.g. checked the variables are the correct type).

Written feedback

When giving feedback on written work, if I make lots of suggestions and comments, this is a sign of me valuing your work and your development, and me investing time and energy into helping it be as good as possible. It’s not a bad sign! I will also always aim to highlight the strengths of what you’ve done and acknowledge the work that has gone – and if I give a compliment, it is very sincere.

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If there’s anything else you think I could include, or you have any general feedback, do feel free to get in touch.

If I ever fail to live up to something I’ve outlined here, please do bring it to my attention.

If this inspires you to write your own post like this, or a much shorter one, please go ahead!