Leaside-East Toronto Soccer
Club
161 Roehampton Av, Toronto,ON, M4P 1P9, Telephone 416 481 6425 Email John@leasidesoccer.net
EMAILS
Emails have become the dominant way for people to communicate. The email has become to
create major problems for the club. The club received well over 2,000 emails in May alone
last season. Some emails are for information; some are for requests; some are for complaints;
some are suggestions. The sender may feel the right to send daily email after email in
order to get an answer. The sender may feel the right to copy 2 or 3 or 5 or more people
in the conversation in order to include everyone. The sender may feel the right to say things
in writing they would never dream of saying person to person.
All in all, the volume and content defies description and is impossible to keep up with.
When people were telephoning there were several built in constraints. There is no such
constraint with the email. It is like a minute by minute assault on the senses and it is
not possible for the sender to understand this unless they were in our shoes. It is
not possible to treat the email like a telephone message just because a person has a
Blackberry. The volume makes it impossible.
Thus, if your email is not answered, it is not because we are rude or ignoring it. It
is just impossible to keep up with them. The suggestion is that if it is so important
you can telephone. Or you can talk with your coach. Or you can talk to the field
supervisor.
Most importantly, reasonable etiquette would demand that you not say that which you
would not want others to say to you. Moderation in the amount of verbage is essential. Make
your point and leave it. People would have never thought of tape recording a telephone conversation
and then replaying it to others- why would they think it proper to do that with emails. It is
shocking to me that people believe it all right to video record people on the sly and then
send that video to other people just to try to prove a point.
In sum, make your email brief, clear and do not expect a response- especially if you send it in
the first month of the season.