Why won't professors respond to my e-mails?

ADad
Fri, 10 Dec 2010 01:02:47 +0000

Regrettably, people aren’t always punctilious about messages. They forget; they are busy; they get distracted. Maybe they are even rude. Maybe they have three hundred other messages and something due tomorrow.

The question for you, though, is this: do you want to dwell on your superiority in the etiquette of messaging, do you want to nurse grudges and remember perceived slights–or do you actually want to get something done?

If the latter, you will ignore or forgive these missteps and patiently continue to seek what you want to get done. Was it so terrible to call her again? Was it so hard to forbear telling her off for not acknowledging your earlier message? Did you actually get something accomplished in the call, and if so wasn’t that, in itself, sufficiently satisfying and useful?