eMail Imbalance

Mr. Al tends to write long letters. Surprised? *grin* They are, of course, very entertaining and enjoyable letters, but it isn’t unheard of for him to go on for 15 paragraphs. We aren’t talking dinky paragraphs either.

This is all fine and well until it’s time for whomever he emailed to reply. For some silly reason, some of his correspondents seem to think they need to write equally long and witty emails in reply. If you’ve read By George! then you have some idea of what a challenge this can be. As a result the replies tend to come slowly.

He’s told people not to bother trying to write long. Simply a sentence saying the email was appreciated would do. But no. It doesn’t feel right to merely enjoy and say “thanks.” I have no problem with this. In fact, I tend to simply grin across the table and say “thanks” rather than bothering to reply in email, and have been known to send him email with no more than a word or two. I do, however, try to keep reasonably even in frequency with those who email me.

So what can you do? You can’t expect him to write shorter. Would you believe him and send short replies? Would you struggle to keep up? Would you let the emails linger in the email box? Would you shrug an not worry about it?

Just curious.