Why do people send thank you e-mails?

[MAKENITO]

Acknowledgement of receipt, and confirmation that I do not need anything more, allowing the sender to close out the issue.

:thumbsup:

 

[AreaCode707]

My response was the close out of the issue though. Nothing more needs to be said after I respond. I KNOW I responded...if they don't get the response worst case scenario is they'll just follow up with me on it again later. I just don't see the need to send an email saying nothing more than TY.

I work with lots of people who test something, it doesn't work, and they are either too frustrated or too busy to let me know in a timely manner. Three months later they follow up with me and I have to redo all my original research. A thank you email tells me they tried it and it worked. If I don't get that email confirming my fix worked for them, I will frequently follow up to make sure. About 70% of the time, if I didn't get that confirmation email, the item is still open and requires help.

 

[IcePickFreak]

Acknowledgement of receipt, and confirmation that I do not need anything more, allowing the sender to close out the issue.

I agree with this as well. You may not need the confirmation Jules since it's someone within your company, but could be the person thanking you is just accustomed to it. They might deal with outside clients and vendors where it's important to have confirmation so when finger-pointing starts over an issue there's a record of it all. At my last job I dealt almost entirely with outside contacts and it was vital to have that record. Sadly, often it was our own sales guys that would throw people (including us) under the bus because of something they missed or misunderstood. Having the "paper trail" was vital since sales pretty much ran the company (...into the ground, I might add) so they always got the benefit of the doubt.

 

[yllus]

Yeah, I don't do thank you e-mails - I usually throw a "thanks in advance" into my original request and people know I'll contact them if something stays broken. If I had the ability to set company-wide e-mail standards I'd add a note telling people not to waste keystrokes on them.

 

[JulesMaximus]

Nearly all of my e-mails are within the company itself either here or in Singapore or the Philippines.

 

[Eli]

I don't really understand what the problem is. It's just communication. You wouldn't like it if you said something to someone, and didn't get a response? It's more than polite, it breaks down barriers, keeps things flowing smoothly.

Nobody ever replying with an acknowledgment email would suck. It would just cause unnecessary tension and stress.

 

[chusteczka]

Those complaining about Thank You emails probably have a slow email server, creating noticeable latency.

 

[rcpratt]

Oops, I just sent a thank you email to a contractor literally two minutes before I read this. She was really cooperative with a new process that we implemented and executed it perfectly, though. I usually never send thank you emails.

 

[Jeff7]

I get yelled at when I DON'T print out emails and file them.

Hang on, let me print out this thread, and then fax you a copy of it with some manner of "facepalm" jpg file on it.

....you know what, I think I'll send 3 copies, just in case.


What else do these people do, keep all their money in cash as well?
(Which may also be kind of pointless, as it's only pieces of paper. Society assigns that useless paper value, just as we give value to the digits on a bank's computer which represent someone's life savings. People are fun. )

 

[SSSnail]

Because if they didn't, you'll be here bitching about how no one appreciates you.

 

[alkemyst]

Because if they didn't, you'll be here bitching about how no one appreciates you.

bitch being the keyword.

 

[MrPickins]

Oh all the things to complain about...

(where is the rolleyes smiley when you need it?)

I agree with AreaCode707. The thank you serves as a receipt confirmation, and lets you know that they found your solution to be acceptable.

It also lets you know that they actually appreciate your effort.

All in all, I'd say it's worth the 5 seconds it takes to read and delete the email.