Gave SAHM asked-for career advice: No response

[Anonymous]

I occassionally miss emails because I get such an incredible amount of junk mail and I'll scroll thru and just miss it. Or I'll read it when I'm nursing the baby in the middle of the night and then forget to respond, or I will have several days without so much as 10 minutes to string together to write a coherent sentence and I will just forget. I am I overwhelmed with the care of small kids and don't have much time to going thru my inbox, so sometimes I miss things. Then again, I am definitely not seeking out any sort of job opportunity, so I'm not sure what her excuse it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Did she ask for the help or did your sister manufacture this need? I'm imagining an off hand comment where your sister says, "you should talk to my sister, I'll connect you with her."

Because this has happened to me, I say, oh I'd love to be a dog trainer, it seems so interesting and fun! And a well
meaning, meddling helper type connects me with a contact and I'm all like, um, I wasn't serious.

Still it's rude not to reply with thank you.

This was my thought.

[Anonymous]

Sometimes gmail sorts things into weird places, including my spam folder. Sometimes I get a ton of email (90% of which is junk) and An email gets buried.

I wouldn't immediately assume she's being rude.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sometimes gmail sorts things into weird places, including my spam folder. Sometimes I get a ton of email (90% of which is junk) and An email gets buried.

I wouldn't immediately assume she's being rude.

If it's part of one of those gmail threads, sometimes difficult to untangle upon first glance.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Rude. But it could be she is overwhelmed with the info and doesn't know how to respond? Or life has been crazy - sick kids, DH traveling, and she's lost track of time? You'll just have to let it go and know that you did a nice thing. Maybe you'll hear from her in a week or so.

My bet is on this.

[Anonymous]

I had a similar experience with an acquaintance. I regretted every minute I spent on that email. She was asking advice on schools. She ended up at Columbia Law school but didn't have the decency to write thank you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Did she ask for the help or did your sister manufacture this need? I'm imagining an off hand comment where your sister says, "you should talk to my sister, I'll connect you with her."

Because this has happened to me, I say, oh I'd love to be a dog trainer, it seems so interesting and fun! And a well
meaning, meddling helper type connects me with a contact and I'm all like, um, I wasn't serious.

Still it's rude not to reply with thank you.

Yes this

[Anonymous]

Rude of her but not a wasted effort if you keep the email and just send the same thing to the next person who asks. Next time before putting a lot of effort into something make the person making the request do something beforehand like draft a few specific questions or answer your questions. That weeds out people who are just wasting your time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Rude of her but not a wasted effort if you keep the email and just send the same thing to the next person who asks. Next time before putting a lot of effort into something make the person making the request do something beforehand like draft a few specific questions or answer your questions. That weeds out people who are just wasting your time.

This. You don't know if her sister was meddling or not. My Mom does this to me all the time--"I talked to thus and so about how you want to get a job in their industry." Me: "Mom, I am not interested in working in their industry." Mom: "well, I told them you were." Sigh.

Before wasting lots of time on an email (based on my family experiences) I would have written and said: Larla, your sister was telling me about your interest in "blah" and I would be happy to write / talk to you more about it. Are you interested? If so, email, text or call me at whatever and I can send you more information. So, the ball is in her court and she can respond to you.

Depending on the day or the amount of spam email I have, if I am not expecting an email from someone I might never see it--especially if I have never met them before and they are not in my contacts.