What does ASAP mean to you?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How often do you ask subordinates to do something ASAP, OP?

A better way would be to set clear deadlines.

Instead of "Send me September's FLART report ASAP" say "Send me September's FLART report by 4pm today."

Please and thank you optional, but couldn't hurt.

By 4 pm is also confusing. What time zone is that 4pm? We always put time zone in.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So when you are working on a priority item that is due within an hour and you get an email that is asap, you just drop what you are doing?

I never have ghis issue with my other coworkers and when I’m the one on the receiving end U always ask about the urgency when U’m eirking on a priority item, and I always get the answer that they don’t need it right away.

Again, it means as soon as possible. So, say you are doing CPR on someone and your boss asks you to write a report ASAP. Do you stop CPR to write the report? No, because it’s not possible at the moment. No problem. On the other hand, say you are cleaning your office and your boss says they need a report ASAP. Do you finish cleaning your office? No, you work on the report instead, at that very moment.

OMG this example! Right bc of my boss said "I need this right now" I would stop saving someone's life in order to write some BS work email. Okay then.

+1, what boss would go to someone performing CPR and say "I need that email with the TPS reports ASAP, thaaaaanks"?!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You mean to say “at your earliest convenience.” Not ASAP.

This. ASAP means right away, top priority. Sorry, op, you’ve got it wrong.

+1

ASAP becomes the top priority.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How often do you ask subordinates to do something ASAP, OP?

A better way would be to set clear deadlines.

Instead of "Send me September's FLART report ASAP" say "Send me September's FLART report by 4pm today."

Please and thank you optional, but couldn't hurt.

By 4 pm is also confusing. What time zone is that 4pm? We always put time zone in.

I assume the timezone of the speaker. Yes, our office is across three timezones. It's been this way for years, and we just all convert automatically.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It means really soon. Without delay. Do it now.

As in, as soon as you can. Not when you do everything and get around to it.

Agree. OP you mis-used the term. I have found that specificity is best. For you case, it might have been “Complete at your own convenience but no later than X.”

[Anonymous]

ASAP means stop other work and do this now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How does “as soon as possible” translate to “whoever you get around to it” in your mind?

OP here. To clarify “When you get around to it”- I meant you do this thing once you got around to your other priorities.

Clearly, we are not unanimous about asap.

Uh, you mean that clearly you are wrong about the meaning of ASAP. DP

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I thought it’s obvious since it literally an acronym for “As soon as possible” meaning NOT right away, but when you get a round to it. I used this in an email to a staff member and he panicked because he read this as right away. Gave me an attitude because apparently he had a lot of stuff that needs to do first. I did not understand what we was going on about at first, until he explained it was because I said ASAP and that meant now? I explained back that this is not what it meant and that if he needs to do something right now then I would have said so.

So, this got me into thinking, do people actually think ASAP is equal to Now? I thought that is possible because people misuse “Do you mind?” all the time, I barely hear people answer properly to that question.

What do you think?

Omg if you’re not ESOL I’d think you were dense as all with that response.

Any more riddles for your subordinates to figure out?

Work on your verbal communication OP.

[Anonymous]

Another vote against OP’s interpretation. The English language isn’t literal. OP you need to be more tuned in to real life usage.

[Anonymous]

It means do it right now unless you have a serious emergency to deal with first.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:ASAP means drop everything and do it now.

The CPR example is so stupid. For the “I have a deadline in an hour” example, you let the requester know you and then You do it as soon as you finish. If you cannot do it right away due to a priority, you let the requester know when to expect that you’ll start on it. But it really means now unless you absolutely can’t and that unless you’re doing CPR, you let the requester know you have to finish something else first. OP misused the term.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How does “as soon as possible” translate to “whoever you get around to it” in your mind?

OP here. To clarify “When you get around to it”- I meant you do this thing once you got around to your other priorities.

Clearly, we are not unanimous about asap.

Everyone here is in agreement except you. You are completely wrong in your interpretation of the expression.

+1

OP must be a nightmare to deal with at work. Multiple pages showing he’s wrong and still won’t admit it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How does “as soon as possible” translate to “whoever you get around to it” in your mind?

OP here. To clarify “When you get around to it”- I meant you do this thing once you got around to your other priorities.

Clearly, we are not unanimous about asap.

It means this is your top priority. If there are things that make it impossible then fixing those things is your top priority.

[Anonymous]

I agree that ASAP means fairly high urgency/priority, push other things off. I also think that there are two ways of handling this on the asker and receiver side. Asker can says: Will it be possible to complete this priority by XX date/time? Receiver can also, in getting an asap request say, "of course, currently I am working on Larla's project, with a deadline of X . Would you like me to prioritize Z?"


In fact this happened to me yesterday. I had a deadline for something yesterday but the head of our org had a need for something 'asap'. I clarified the timeline of asap (before an international flight that night!) and then I told first group that I had a new priority from the big boss, and I would turn the other thing around this weekend (yay working all weekend...after coffee and dcum).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I agree that ASAP means fairly high urgency/priority, push other things off. I also think that there are two ways of handling this on the asker and receiver side. Asker can says: Will it be possible to complete this priority by XX date/time? Receiver can also, in getting an asap request say, "of course, currently I am working on Larla's project, with a deadline of X . Would you like me to prioritize Z?"


In fact this happened to me yesterday. I had a deadline for something yesterday but the head of our org had a need for something 'asap'. I clarified the timeline of asap (before an international flight that night!) and then I told first group that I had a new priority from the big boss, and I would turn the other thing around this weekend (yay working all weekend...after coffee and dcum).

This is exactly what the employee did - clarify which thing should be higher priority. Then OP was confused because he didn’t understand why the employee was doing that.