Loss of Common Courtesy in Communication

This has been happening long before the pandemic. I fear the current situation has only exacerbated it. I am a consultant and small business man. While I am keenly aware that people seem overloaded by texts, emails and social media in additon to what is required by their jobs, there has been a tremendous loss of what I might call professional social grace.

I have discussed this with a number of people and colleagues and there’s a common feeling that there is a sad lack of courtesy at times. I have been reaching out to a community of people for a new business I am involved in. When I am specifically requested to send information, I would expect some form of response. I fully respect a lack of interest that could be for a wide variety of reasons, but if someone is going to request information, then they should be courtesy enough to respond even if it is negative response.

The goes for applying for positions or discussing engagements. I recently was discussing an engagement and the company was initially very interested in discussing an opportunity. When I hadn’t heard back after a period of time, I sent a number of emails, “checking in”. As of this article, I have not received any response.

I would normally expect a note of some kind, “thanks but no thanks”, “the opportunity vanished”, “ we filled the position”. There are any number of professional responses. DEAD AIR is not one of them.

I was mentored differently. I always respond. It doesn’t need to be long or detailed, if there was some initial interest and something changed, shouldn’t there be some form of comment or notification.

Communication has become increasingly impersonal. Text, tweet and other forms of “social” media have removed real social interaction.

Maybe one of the “benefits” that will come from the pandemic, is people realizing how important real social interaction is as we are still “social distancing”

One can only hope.

Gary Olson