Last post on e-mail here for a while. I promise.

I hate sending an e-mail and not getting a prompt response.

If my e-mail can leave my computer at the speed of light (186,000 miles per second), that means that barring any interference from a slow server, it can be in your hands almost immediately after I have clicked “Send.”

So, when I have to wait for a while to hear back from you, I start to get antsy. Especially if it’s important. Especially especially if it’s a really simple question.

I know you’re busy, but you should know that I’m not used to waiting. I don’t remember a time when letters took time to get places. My older brother told me that when overnight mail came out it was a revolution. My father and I were recently discussing what a difference fax machines made when they first emerged on the scene. Both strike me as slow ways to communicate.

Now, I don’t point this out to wage some personal war on the advances of days past. I say because bosses need to understand that I need quick feedback. Some people have tagged my generation the “Instant Gratification Generation” (see this article). And they’re right. So, when working with me or one of my cohorts who requires instant gratification, you need to recognize this and work with it.

Here are three easy ways to speed up those response times:

1. Check your e-mail often. If my e-mail is loitering in your inbox, you cannot respond to it.

2. Acknowledge that you’ve gotten it. If it’s a complex question, let me know you’re working on it. If it’s an easy question, answer it.

3. Set an away message if you’re going to be out. I’ll be spared the awkward question of wondering if it’s polite to send more e-mails or calling. You’ll be spared my next thirteen e-mails and four voice-mails.

A couple more posts on e-mail here before I move on to another subject.

When you send an e-mail, do not put whole lines of text in all capital letters. This is considered the electronic equivalent of yelling, and it is generally considered rude in tech-savvy circles. When I look at a message from someone who has typed this way, I generally find myself predisposed to thinking that the writer is uncouth. At best.

In face-to-face contacts, if you want to emphasize something, you use rhetorical and verbal devices like repetition, carefully chosen words, and intonation. You don’t simply walk into a meeting and start yelling at the top of your lungs just because something is important.

In e-mail, it’s the same story. SO DO NOT DO THIS! YOUR YOUNG EMPLOYEES WILL THINK YOU ARE BEING RUDE.  Sorry. I couldn’t resist the opportunity to be ironic. But I am deadly serious about not capitalizing like that.

I prefer e-mail to most forms of communication for anything important or work-related.

First, it’s fast. In about 15 seconds, someone in Hong Kong can click and I’ll have her message. That’s pretty cool. And I’ve got to be honest with you: I hate waiting for information. Whether it’s feedback, an assignment, or just confirmation that you’ve received my last e-mail, I don’t want to wait. I mean, if I can find out something as esoteric the atomic mass of cobalt(58.9 amu) and link you to it, all within thirty seconds, why should I be kept waiting for you to tell me what you want?

Second, it’s hard to lose e-mails, and I can access them anywhere with an Internet connection. If you’ve ever misplaced a piece of paper, you’ll know why I like to save important documents in my inbox. I don’t take good notes, so when I’m looking at a piece of paper on which I have scrawled the cryptic words “snorkel camera 14!” I begin to wonder what we discussed on the phone.

Now, I’m not trying to sell you on e-mail. For the most part, everyone has bought-in to using e-mail. I am, however, trying to let you see why I prefer an e-mail to a phone call or a fax. (I think of the fax machine like the telegraph. It was great piece of machinery at the time, but now there should be one at the Smithsonian and a bunch in the dump.)

Being that e-mail is newer technology than hand writing by a good two or three thousand years, it’s had a few opportunities to develop its own sense of what is right and wrong.

For instance, brevity is the soul of wit in an e-mail. In the restaurant industry I had a boss who would send out long-winded e-mails detailing a problem (not enough clean tables, for instance), its roots, why this was viewed as a problem, several admonitions against the current bad practice, and finally a prescription for new behaviors. Sometimes I wonder if he was just straining for extra words to seem particularly informed, or if he was too ingrained in the attitude of snail mail that requires you to get your 42 cents worth from a letter.

All the while, he could have summed it up in six words: “I want to see clean tables.” That’s all he had to say. Bang. Done. Tables will be cleaned. It’s not rude - it’s efficient. It’s not trite - it’s e-mail. Remember: E-mail is supposed to be fast, so if you type up the type of training manual Tolstoy would, you’re fighting against the form and function of this mode of communication.

Worse yet, this particular supervisor would send seemingly dozens of these e-mails each week. This caused two problems:

1. We were too busy reading all of his e-mails to go clean tables.
2. Eventually we began to wonder if he did anything other than write e-mails and decided to stop reading his e-mails all together.

If you clutter my inbox, I will spend time reading what you send. At first. Then, as I catch on to the fact that you’re not saying anything, I’ll stop reading. When that e-mail that says you need something yesterday isn’t opened until next week, you’ll be quite chagrined and I’ll be blaming you. And that is a communication problem.

I recently applied for a new job. I got the posting for it in my e-mail.

Every single person I know who has attended a university has received an e-mail address from the school. At the university I attended, these addresses were given to the departments in which the students studied. Thus, employers could provide notices of jobs to be sent out to the students via e-mail. As a journalism student, I frequently received (and still receive) job postings for newspapers, public relations firms, advertising jobs, and the like.

Talk about easy access to an excellent candidate pool.

First, the e-mail is going to people who are (at least in theory) interested in the field they are studying. A posting for an architecture job can be sent to a number of students studying architecture.

Second, the e-mail is going to be read by people who are interested in the position. Take it from a guy who has opened maybe a half dozen of the hundreds of these e-mails he’s received: I’m pretty darn interested in the ones I open. If I’m getting in touch with you, it means something really hit home.

Third, the e-mail makes the reader feel wanted. This is a targeted want-ad that arrived in the hands of someone who knows he was targeted. That the posting was even given to the university tells students “This employer wants a student.” The student then says, “HEY! I’m a student. They want me.” It feels good to be wanted. Especially by someone who wants to pay you.

Last, the e-mail is likely going into a group of people who will be looking for jobs. University students are not known for having high-paying jobs (or any jobs at all, for that matter). When it comes time to leave campus and enter the real world, having a list of places to go delivered directly to you can be a comforting way to start.

So, drop by your local university. E-mail some far away universities. Get on these lists and watch qualified young employees start applying as you communicate with them this way.

OK, so you need to call a young employee and ask him to come in on his day off on short notice. What do you do? Phone call? Text message? Prayer?

I’ll start with this disclaimer: Do not bother with the text unless your young employees have been begging for more hours. A text message is the easiest method of communication to ignore. You don’t have to look someone in the eyes. You don’t have to type any more than about three keystrokes on your cell phone to turn down this particular request. It is not going to work unless this person really wants to come in.

I recognize that the phone call from the work phone is a dangerous bet as well. Almost every cell phone today has caller ID, so your young employee will know before he picks up that you are calling. Odds are good he’ll know why you’re calling. Some might not even answer to avoid having to tell you “no. I had one boss who would call me on his cell phone with the caller ID blocked. As it turns out, though, he’s pretty much the only person who ever called me with caller ID blocked, so it was essentially the same thing.

Overall, I think the phone call is the way to go in this situation for two reasons. A text is easy to turn down, and you’re not looking to get rejected. (This lesson is quickly learned the first time you ask someone on a date via text message.) When you send a text to request something above and beyond the norm, you are meekly hiding away, hoping that the beneficent mercy of your young employees will pull you through if you’re mousy enough about it. Moreover, the phone call shows that you have the guts to at least call someone and ask for a favor. If you call, you’re letting them know it’s a big deal - it merited the 30 seconds for a full, actual phone call!

So, let your fingers do the walking, and I think you’re more likely to get folks to come in.

One question I know employers frequently ask is “What’s the best way to communicate with young employees?”

As I previously mentioned, there is not a one-size-fits-all answer to any question this broad. So, instead of trying to give you an answer to a question that can’t be answered, over the next few posts I’m going to take a few different common situations and look at a few of the ways bosses have communicated with me that have worked well, and a couple that were not well advised.

If you find yourself asking specific questions about communication with your young employees, feel free to “communicate” them to me via e-mail. My address is tj@generationwhy.com and it’s the best way to get in touch with me.

I’ll be starting tomorrow with that dreaded situation:  calling a young employee to ask him to come in on his day off.

I tend to speak in sweeping generalities in my posts. It’s a handy device to keep the blog from sounding like nothing more than the self-absorbed wish-list written by a young man who has yet to come to grips with the fact that the universe, work in particular, doesn’t revolve around him. (Which is not to say that this isn’t the case.)

One problem with such generalities, however, is that they often squeak over important details. The broader the stroke, the more minute details are glazed over. At times, I will make claims like “If you do X, all of your Gen Whys will be happy.” And while I will stand behind the claims I make, I won’t claim that they are true 100% of the time for every single person from the age of 16-24. That would be absurd.

It’s important, then, for employers to keep in mind that not every Gen Why is the same. Not every one of us prefers text messaging to phone calls or e-mail to face-to-face contact. I can tell you what my friends like. I can give you a particularly good picture of what I like. But I can’t begin to tell you what your employees like. You need to get to know them to figure that out.

It shouldn’t be that hard. Odds are good that if you’ve been successful in the business world to this point, you have already gone through this process countless times with clients and supervisors. You just need to extend that same process to your young employees. Get to know them. It will help you.

Some of your Gen Whys will like comic books. Some will like football. Some will like both, some neither. It’s helpful to know what an employee likes when you’re attempting to find a small bonus to motivate him.

Some of your Gen Whys will enjoy talking and interacting to no end. Others will eschew all forms of verbal communication for the written. Whether you’re attempting to get vital information to or from an employee, knowing how he prefers to communicate will aid in that.

At the risk of throwing out another generalization, we’re just like every other generation in this way: We’re all a little bit different. So, next time you ask yourself “How should I deal with a new young person?” you might want to consult with the very best source for information on that employee’s preferences: The new person you just hired.

Ask a quick question or two. For instance: Is e-mail the best way to get in touch with you? Do you prefer phone calls or text messages? Do you prefer baseball or comic books? Your young employee will have all the answers you need.

But don’t worry - I’ll still be here offering advice, too. There are a lot of cool ways (and inevitably some lame ways) that employers are connecting with young people’s interests, and I’m going to work to bring those to you so you can use them, too.

Tomorrow, I am departing for a camping trip, so I thought that I would take some time to address a work issue that is near and dear to my heart: time off.

As a young man, I can tell you that I greatly value time off. In fact, I start to get cranky, act out, and generally drop off in the productivity department if I don’t get a few days out of the workplace once in a while. I’ve been very fortunate over the last few years to have a number of managers who understood this and were willing to work with me on my schedule so that I could take a few needed sanity days.

Right now, I’ve got it even better. I work for my father’s small business at my day job, and work with a close friend writing my schedule at my night job. This translates into getting time off when I need it off. Sometimes, that’s for a meeting. Sometimes it’s to be at one job or the other for a big project. Sometimes it’s to go to a baseball game and then play some mini-golf. I can’t imagine a more flexible arrangement as far as getting days off goes.

As I was thinking about what I wanted to say about time off, I realized that there was no better way to tell you what I want than to tell you what I’ve got. Simply put, if you work with an employee on her schedule as if you were her father or friend, you’re going to have one happy Gen Why on your hands. This doesn’t mean that you have to bend over backwards to accommodate that employee’s every whim. It definitely doesn’t mean you should be calling at six in the morning to make sure she’s up. It means that you should just keep a few guidelines in mind:

1. Missing a day of work isn’t the end of the world. There’s always tomorrow, and there’ll always be work to do then, too.

2. I’m working so I can afford the stuff I do outside of work. What good is it being able to afford baseball tickets if I can’t go to the game?

3. Some days, I just plain don’t want to be here, and my work will reflect that. You’ll be able to tell that I’m having one of these days by observing a glazed look in my eyes, a slouched posture that seems best suited for watching the clock, and an increasingly sharp edge in my voice. Let me go home.

If you can do that, if you can schedule for your employees like you would schedule for your own children or your own friends, you’ll have a group of happy campers on your hands. No pun intended.