Learning from a bad experience

Even through adversity I think we can all learn from a bad experience in Student Affairs (SA). As you may have read in previous posts I didn't have the best experience in my graduate assistant (GA) position but I still picked up a couple things along the way that are really helpful in SA. This is going to be a short post due to the holiday but what I'm going to try and stress today is email etiquette.

I had always kept up with email correspondence before my GA experience but throughout my ten months as a Community Director I learned just how important email can be. Some of your colleagues may utilize emails as documentation; I suggest you do the same. Be organized with your emails by using folders, sub-folders, whatever you have to do. This may be invaluable to you later on when you want to double check on a prior conversation you may have had with a student, colleague, or superior especially. Documentation doesn't have to be either positive or negative, think of it as just covering yourself and making sure you always keep what you've said in the past straight. 

Additionally, double check and triple check your emails prior to sending! I can't over-emphasize the importance of proofreading. Trust me, I know proofreading can be tedious, especially for those of us who are strong writers and consider our writing to be complete after the first draft. Regardless, I still make mistakes from time to time and I'd hate for someone to form a negative impression of my work ethic based off some silly mistakes in an email. Of course, I also hope I'm not communicating with someone who would make such opinions off of minor grammatical/stylistic errors in an email...but still! Believe me, I double and tripled checked an email to someone at my university to arrange a future appointment before actually sending it but I was recently reviewing my inbox to see the very email with a mistake...IN THE SUBJECT! Instead of writing "Expressing my interest in *blah blah blah" (obviously I didn't really write blah blah blah, just using a placeholder) I had instead wrote "Expressing my interested in *blah blah blah". Such a simple mistake and nothing to cry over but I hate having someone see a mistake and stumble over my message before they get far into it. So do the right thing and proofread. 

Lastly, be timely in responses! You won't look crazy for responding to an email quickly so do it if possible! If you're anything like me, you'll likely appreciate a quick response, whether it's positive or negative because hey, least you have an answer or you're closer to one! Don't leave anyone hanging when they ask you a question either. The worst thing to do is to make someone wait days for an answer that may only take you minutes to formulate. 

To review, be organized with your emails, proofread at least once before sending, and be timely in responses. One last thing I'll leave with you, which I'm trying to incorporate myself actually, is to respond to emails even when you're not ready to. What I mean is, if someone asks you a question but you don't know the answer right away and do not anticipate being able to respond to that person in a timely manner later on, perhaps consider dropping a simple email acknowledging that you've received their email and that you'll be responding to them accordingly...something like, "Hey, just wanted to let you know that I've reviewed your email but let me double check a couple things before getting back to you with a final answer."

Easy as 1, 2, 3!