I had a friend just chew me out because she thinks I'm not responding to my email fast enough. She emailed me at 3 pm yesterday, and I responded at 10:30 AM today. I figure a turnaround time of 24 hours or less is perfectly acceptable and I don't understand why she's griping at me. Even when I send out business-related emails, I don't get riled up I don't hear back the same day, especially if I sent it late in the business day. She seems to think that I'm sitting at my computer all day waiting for emails to come in so I can respond, when in fact I check my email maybe 2x a day, and maybe only once.
I used to have a similar problem with my boss. He sat one office away from me, and would send urgent assignments by email instead of picking up the phone and buzzing me on the intercom. He didn't seem to understand than an email can potentially take up to a couple of hours to arrive (and one time it literally did take that long). So he would walk in 20 minutes after sending the email and say, "Did you get my email? It's urgent!" And I would say, "If it's urgent, and you want to make sure I know right away, you should probably pick up the phone."
What do you consider an appropriate amount of time to respond to an email, whether business or personal? And do you consider email an appropriate mode of communication at all when you want a response quickly?
I used to have a similar problem with my boss. He sat one office away from me, and would send urgent assignments by email instead of picking up the phone and buzzing me on the intercom. He didn't seem to understand than an email can potentially take up to a couple of hours to arrive (and one time it literally did take that long). So he would walk in 20 minutes after sending the email and say, "Did you get my email? It's urgent!" And I would say, "If it's urgent, and you want to make sure I know right away, you should probably pick up the phone."
What do you consider an appropriate amount of time to respond to an email, whether business or personal? And do you consider email an appropriate mode of communication at all when you want a response quickly?