Don’t you love it when a form of some kind asks how you prefer to communicate? No joke — it’s great. Both my health care place and my car mechanic place has an option like this. Phone, text, or email. Perfectly nice options. I mean, I’ll take a webhook if you got it but these are fine. Better: they honor the choice.

So it’s amazing to me when actual tech companies and the people who work at tech companies not only don’t offer it, but don’t honor or respect it.

I got an email from a web host the other day that was essentially this back and forth, on email:

[Host]: Hey there is there are some concerns with your account. 

[Me]: What are the concerns?

[Host]: What day and time works best for you to discuss?

[Me]: I’m afraid I don’t want to take a phone call about a totally unknown issue. Feel free to shoot an email. 

[Host]: Increased traffic — we'd like to discuss the options.

[Me]: OK let's discuss them. 

[Host]: (Finally lays out the situation, and it is about traffic and such, and we properly discuss the situation and options.)

[Me]: Let's go with this option, thanks!

The messages from them are highly truncated, but mine are verbatim. I probably come across as a little curt, but I’m trying to get to the meat of the situation as quickly as we can here.

They really wanted to get me on the phone. I don’t really understand why. Perhaps a sales pitch they think only works on the phone? Perhaps some company culture that encourages it or considers it a failure if you’re not on the actual phone enough? I don’t know.

What I do know is now it’s been two months and they haven’t made the changes I decided on yet. Feels like email requests are so foreign to their system that decisions made there are lost in the shuffle.