What other professions are okay with late-night messaging?

Brad W said:
...email I view as more open.... you'll check that when you check it....
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Tarheelpilot said:
...Text messages are not the same as an email...
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Exactly!! I'm getting older, more stubborn and often feel like I'm swimming up stream. Texting seems to be the term adopted for instant messaging by phone. Instant messaging existed well before texting phones were mainstream. In the old days, it was clear if someone IM'd you they needed a timely answer. Otherwise, e-mail was the preferred mechanism and reading/replying timeliness was at the recipient's discretion. I continue to carry this approach forward, for example, e-mailing my kids when my query isn't urgent. I wait weeks for an answer b/c kids these days only text. At work, I've had to coach younger hires to read their e-mails as they also only want to text.
 
There is a difference between getting calls from employers vs call from students (customers).

When I owned my veterinary clinic we would get calls on our home phone from clients at any hour of any day because a cat sneezed or coughed up a hair ball. There were even occasional calls for something that was actually serious.
But we would not call an employee after hours unless it was an emergency, AND even then we must have had them previously agree to accept those calls, for which they were quite well compensated.
 
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RussR said:
I was mentioning this to some other (non-aviation) people a while ago, and they thought it was about the weirdest thing ever. Why would I respond to, or initiate contact with, clients outside of normal-ish business hours? And of course, this help I provide is free.
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It's called "customer service" and it is how you retain and attract good customers. Once a business gets so big and successful that they think they don't need to provide such customer service, that is when their reputation begins to sag and their business begins a slow downward burn.
 
MICHAEL MAHN said:
Exactly!! I'm getting older, more stubborn and often feel like I'm swimming up stream. Texting seems to be the term adopted for instant messaging by phone. Instant messaging existed well before texting phones were mainstream. In the old days, it was clear if someone IM'd you they needed a timely answer. Otherwise, e-mail was the preferred mechanism and reading/replying timeliness was at the recipient's discretion. I continue to carry this approach forward, for example, e-mailing my kids when my query isn't urgent. I wait weeks for an answer b/c kids these days only text. At work, I've had to coach younger hires to read their e-mails as they also only want to text.
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Definitely everyone should conform to your apparently outdated habits.:D I mean, it might be easier if you caught up, but do whatever works (or doesn't) for you.
 
The whole point of texting or emailing as opposed to calling is that you can send it at any time, and the recipient is not obligated to run to their phone to answer it. I have texted or emailed people at 2am not because they were urgent messages but because I happened to be thinking about it at that moment. The context of the message makes it clear that no response was needed urgently.
 
Lindberg said:
Definitely everyone should conform to your apparently outdated habits.:D I mean, it might be easier if you caught up, but do whatever works (or doesn't) for you.
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Counterpoint: work email is a record that can be archived and serves as an artifact; text/sms can’t. That’s doesn’t even begin to address information governance and data classification rules that can also drive a requirement to use the approved medium for communication.

My employer has let more than one EE go for using tex/sms to to communicate on certain topics.
 
Albany Tom said:
I think you might be asking 2 different questions here. One is how available you should be, the other is should you be giving away free CFI time via text.
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Nope, not my questions at all. I'm quite fine with the way I do business and it seems to get me more business, so I don't see the need to change anything there.

Tarheelpilot said:
no I don’t think I would be ok with what you all put up with regarding availability. If I’m contacting someone outside business hours it’s an email. Text messages are not the same as an email in my opinion.
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I don't see how they're different at all. They both come in to the same device (my phone). I can have both of them silenced when I don't want to be disturbed. I will, of course, prefer to use email (from the laptop) for longer-form discussions, sending attachments, etc. But that's based on content, not time of day.

scarcherpilot said:
I am an early bird, so usually in bed by 9:30pm and up at 430am. I have a rule...if you text me after I go to bed, I text you right when I wake up. When they tell me they don't like getting texts that early, I tell them I don't like them that late. Usually solves the problem.
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I don't even understand this issue. If they don't like getting early texts (or you late ones), set the Do Not Disturb function.

I do find it interesting that some people consider texts to be like calls, where the expectation is that you'll answer right away, and some people consider texts more like emails, where you answer when you get around to it.

I wonder if this is related to pre-cell-phone telephone practice. 20 years or more ago, if the phone rang, you didn't know who it was, but I think most people would generally stop what they were doing to answer the call. It might be important, or it might be long-distance. So we treated the phone ringing almost like a alert notification, and I remember even running through the house to get to it.

Now, of course, we can usually tell who's calling (or at least if it's someone we know), most phone calls are spam anyway, and the ones that are actually intended for us we don't feel bad about ignoring until it's more convenient for us - they can leave a voicemail if it's important.

So I think the way we consider phone calls has changed, and would hypothesize that "when you grew up" has a lot to do with it, and by extension, how you consider text messages.

In my case, as stated I consider texts to be in the same category as emails and have no issue with receiving them at whatever time of day. I generally won't send them after about 10 PM, but that's mostly because I'm in bed. My wife is only 3 years older than me, but she views them as the same as voice calls, and will not send them outside normal "social hours". Both of us have Do Not Disturb set overnight (at slightly different times).
 
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As far as sending texts goes, I will do that during working hours for people at work, at any time as required for staff on call of course. For friends, family and people working at other businesses I'm conservative in trying not to bother them. Usually between 10am and about 9pm weekdays, and I won't text someone before noon on a weekend, or after 9pm any day, unless I know they're always up at those hours. Just to be considerate.

For work email, I don't send to most people after 5, on weekends, or before 8. People *shouldn't* be checking their damn email off hours, but we have some people that put in too many hours, and I'm not going to give them things to do off hours. Incoming, I don't expect people to follow that lead, so I just don't check work email off-hours. Ever.

Non-work emails I'll send at 2am, because I figure that if you're goofy enough to have a device that beeps at you whenever you get an email, then you must like getting beeps at 2am.

Text is between phone and email, and I prefer sending and receiving text as it's less interrupting. People can respond to text while in a meeting, and that's an efficient way to be less annoying while still getting a short message in. I'll use the phone when I'm driving, though, because I can do that hands free, and hands free text is barely to non-functional in my truck.

To me the main difference between email and text is length. If I have a bunch of crap to send, it's email. Short note? Text. The secondary difference for me is that on call people also typically have text access as well as phone, where they won't necessarily be paying any attention to email off-hours.

Big difference between phone and anything else is emotional content. Second is that it allows instant feedback. Contentious texts or emails are just a bad plan, usually a waste of time. If there's a problem, you need a call or a face to face. Likewise if it's complicated. Phone is a step between text/email and an in person meeting.

The good thing is we have a lot of different ways of communicating. That's a bad thing too, because some of them are a PITA. If the above seems way too formal and planned, it's probably because most of what I do for a living is communications. I have to get it as efficient, and as thoughtful to the people that I work with, as possible.
 
I don't have a job where I have to be available, but as far as text messaging I won't send a text at an hour I wouldn't call either. I have DND enabled for my phone so I won't be bothered at night, but I don't necessarily assume other people do too.
 
This is the modern world. Instant communications is everywhere, not just in aviation.

My most productive hours are after 10pm. I have to clear my inbox and capture any big thoughts before I can sleep, so I often send 20 or so emails to my employees by midnight. It caused them much stress until I clearly communicated that no response or action was expected until the following day.

I do not text anyone after about 8pm unless A) it is urgent, and B) I know them very well.
 
I used to be in public accounting and now work for a bank in a lending unit. Our clients are private equity sponsors, family run companies and public companies.

If you don’t respond, whenever they reach out, it’s a black mark and will impact future business.

Rare, but includes holidays too. Markets and almost everything shuts down Easter, Xmas and NY day. But the eves are all fair game and any weekend is normal.

I can’t imagine not responding to a customer.
 
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Ed Haywood said:
…I often send 20 or so emails to my employees by midnight. It caused them much stress until I clearly communicated that no response or action was expected until the following day….
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Do no deliver until 7:00am is an option on those emails.
 
TCABM said:
Do no deliver until 7:00am is an option on those emails.
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For modern email systems, yes. For Microsoft o365, at least our tenant, you have to have the client computer running during the entire time of the hold.
 
Albany Tom said:
For modern email systems, yes. For Microsoft o365, at least our tenant, you have to have the client computer running during the entire time of the hold.
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I think that depends on exchange server settings for older versions. I *know* it worked as far back as 2010, because I had a Capt that had some folks thinking he was always working early & late. I was in early one day and it hit my inbox, so I went down to see him, only to find an empty office. And no, we weren’t using webmail on this system.
 
I am in IT and manage a data center. It's 'normal' for me to communicate with some vendors at night or on weekends. In fact, I ran a test this morning for a vendor in response to a 3am email from him which I responded to him early this morning. We text at all hours, including 2 or 3 am. If we don't hear back, we figure that the other person is either busy or sleeping. If I get a text at 3am, and I am not up, I just ignore it and continue sleeping. If I get up for a bathroom break at 4am, I will check my messages. Calls from 10pm-7am are only in emergencies, unless we are texting at 3am and the response time indicates that we are both up, then we sometimes call even in the middle of the night.
As to my employees, since I have 24 hour staffing, I keep track of their normal sleep times and try to only call them when I know they are normally awake. They all know that they can call me 24/7 even for non-emergencies.
 
Fortunately, I am not that important to have anyone calling/texting me at odd hours.
 
I teach high school. I don’t get many angry emails from parents but those that I do get? I swear they start drinking before dinner and work up their rage for a few hours before letting their inner keyboard warrior selves loose. The last screed went so far as to state that her kid is the daughter of a Marine.

I always reply to these emails the same night, with point by point explanations as to describe how their kids are completely exaggerating or outright lying.

To the point about the daughter of a Marine? Roughly … your daughter’s math teacher served six in the Navy. Along with my wife. And daughter currently.

The kid came into class the next day looking rather humbled.
 
Morgan3820 said:
Fortunately, I am not that important to have anyone calling/texting me at odd hours.
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I can't speak for the others, but I'm not on call because I'm important, quite the opposite. It's the IT equivalent of the soft serve machine breaking overnight, and everybody wanting ice cream in the morning, so I may have to help coordinate fixing it. Maybe a little less menial, really it's IT security for me, but basically it comes down to underfunded, neglected, and/or rushed systems that fall apart or are attacked. If something happens and I'm not available, they find another team member and annoy them. We trade off and cover each other. No one irreplaceable.
 
RussR said:
........I don't see how they're different at all. They both come in to the same device (my phone). I can have both of them silenced when I don't want to be disturbed. I will, of course, prefer to use email (from the laptop) for longer-form discussions, sending attachments, etc. But that's based on content, not time of day.
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I think that's the key with the current paradigm of all these forms of communication..... they can be silenced. That's a hard thing to juggle though, balancing work ethic with sanity, etc....

RussR said:
I do find it interesting that some people consider texts to be like calls, where the expectation is that you'll answer right away, and some people consider texts more like emails, where you answer when you get around to it.

I wonder if this is related to pre-cell-phone telephone practice. 20 years or more ago, if the phone rang, you didn't know who it was, but I think most people would generally stop what they were doing to answer the call. It might be important, or it might be long-distance. So we treated the phone ringing almost like a alert notification, and I remember even running through the house to get to it.
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That is very interesting how different folks look at them differently. I've had this same debate with my kids and others.
Your running for the phone thing reminds me of a story. My boss and I were sitting in a paper mill production superintendent's office... a fairly high up and busy person..... his phone rang. My boss & I both paused and sat quietly, politely waiting for him to answer. He realized what we were doing...we had probably stopped talking mid sentence.... He looked at us and said something to the affect of...."if I answer that phone, that is like saying to you two that some unknown person, that could be somebody that dialed a wrong number, is more important to me that you two are." He didn't answer that phone. That was a perspective shift that really stuck with me.

RussR said:
So I think the way we consider phone calls has changed, and would hypothesize that "when you grew up" has a lot to do with it, and by extension, how you consider text messages.

In my case, as stated I consider texts to be in the same category as emails and have no issue with receiving them at whatever time of day. I generally won't send them after about 10 PM, but that's mostly because I'm in bed. My wife is only 3 years older than me, but she views them as the same as voice calls, and will not send them outside normal "social hours". Both of us have Do Not Disturb set overnight (at slightly different times).
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I agree it probably does have a lot to do with one's paradigm.
Personally I don't consider texts or mms to be the same as email at all. I feel that it lies someplace between email and and actual old fashioned verbal phone call. Given the nature of texting, it's something that is very limiting in what can be transmitted...short message kind of stuff. It's the kind of thing that can be read and sometimes even replied to during for example a meeting or class when you wouldn't ordinarily take a phone call....but it's also something you might not see right away and might lead to some delay.
A phone call however is "I need to talk with you NOW"
and an email....well thats the kind of thing that might be read once or twice a day, or in some situations not for a few days.... but can contain a lot deeper level of information.
 
I tell my clients that they can call me at absolutely anytime they want. I also tell them that if I can’t take the call, they will just go to voicemail, so don’t worry about whether they are bothering me. They won’t.
 
Morgan3820 said:
Fortunately, I am not that important to have anyone calling/texting me at odd hours.
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I wish this was better understood and valued out there, but it rarely is in my circles.

I have actively cultivated this status for myself. I promoted myself out of management into roles where nobody speaks to me after 5pm, and it really is great. In fact, my latest "promotion" is to cultivate east coast clients, where nobody speaks to me after 2pm. Rock up late around 10am and you've got yourself a half day for full pay. Take that 90 minute "lunch" at noon and you're more like 1/3 time. I keep refusing management roles because I have been to that rodeo, and I know the difference between "phoning it in" for "40 hours" vs being busy AF, in zoom calls all day, and working hard for 60+. Calculated hourly, I make more than my CTOs. I can bag 2 parallel contracts and make 50% more than they do with similar effort and no responsibility.

Quality of life is worth something.
 
schmookeeg said:
I wish this was better understood and valued out there, but it rarely is in my circles.

I have actively cultivated this status for myself. I promoted myself out of management into roles where nobody speaks to me after 5pm, and it really is great. In fact, my latest "promotion" is to cultivate east coast clients, where nobody speaks to me after 2pm. Rock up late around 10am and you've got yourself a half day for full pay. Take that 90 minute "lunch" at noon and you're more like 1/3 time. I keep refusing management roles because I have been to that rodeo, and I know the difference between "phoning it in" for "40 hours" vs being busy AF, in zoom calls all day, and working hard for 60+. Calculated hourly, I make more than my CTOs. I can bag 2 parallel contracts and make 50% more than they do with similar effort and no responsibility.

Quality of life is worth something.
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Exactly. Going into management is a self inflicted head wound.
 
I'm an engineer who designs production machinery for in-house use, then naturally I support those same machines. It wouldn't be unexpected or unreasonably (within reason :)) to get calls when the night shift is having trouble, but I don't. I think precisely once in 20 years with this company I got a call when I was on vacation... and it was a quick question with a quick answer and I went back to vacating (is that a word?).

I could say that it's because I'm such an awesome engineer that my machines never break down but sadly, my experience with the day shift blows that theory out of the water... :rolleyes:
 
My entire career I've been accessible 24/7... As I've advanced up the ladder I've gotten less 'in the weeds' and no longer get pulled into operational emergencies. In fact the last year or so I put my phone on the charger at some point and don't touch it until the next morning.
 
I’m in facilities for med Device mfg. we operate almost 24 hours per day. Flexible work hours is a double edge sword. Take the good with the bad.
 
To answer your question, yes it does happen in many industries. Something that I didn't see mentioned is the setting of expectations. Set the expectations early on with your students. If you don't want to be texted after 7pm, tell them that. If you are cool with them texting questions at any hour as long as they are of a certain nature, tell them that. Most people are okay with boundaries if they are properly established ahead of time.
 
I don't understand the question as asked. Nobody HAS to answer a text immediately.

My cell phone is a relatively inexpensive one and it has settings that allow me to have "private time" for sleeping or whatever. Calls from numbers I preset get through so if my boss, parents, girlfriend, or adult children call it rings. Otherwise it goes directly to VM without ringing. Texts make no sounds. So, if you text me at 2am, and I'm asleep I won't even see it till morning. If I see it at 6:15 and answer it at 6:45 I figure you have the same capability. No problems.

Years ago when the children were kids I worked in a different field because it paid better. I had an older cell-phone and just turned it off at night. I also had a beeper so if there was an emergency the few people who had my pager number could get through. (Like the time one son saved $10 on parking at a concert only to find my car sunk to the axles in mud where he parked.)

People left messages when I didn't answer at ten to midnite. The next morning I went through my messages and dealt with the issues that hadn't resolved themselves. That's what I do now with texts.
 
RussR said:
Do accountants get asked random questions at 9 PM?
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Yes I do, but I work for a $50B global organization. I get bothered on vacation. I get bothered on weekends at times. My wife still finds it odd when she asks me if I'm going to bed soon and I say no, I have a call with China. When I was younger I thought it was cool. Now I'm old grumpy and don't like it.

If someone wanted to text me at all hours about airplanes I would be all for it. :D
 
I think you need to approach this a bit differently -- How should you respond to it? Do you tell your students which hours you're awake or prefer to be contacted?

When I first engaged my (independent) CFI, I asked him how he preferred I contact him and which hours he preferred. As a rule, I only SMS my CFI between 10a-6p; 8a-8p if it pertains to a flight.

I've been on-call 24/7/365 since I was 14, which required the use of a pager back then. I use DnD any time I don't want to be bothered, which typically is when I'm sleeping.

I tell everyone if you call me twice in a row to bypass my DnD, someone better be dying and I do answer the phone, "Who's dying?" If it isn't about someone in hospital, I hang up on the person mid-sentence and block them for a good week (or longer) from all calls on my phone. Yes, even my bosses discovered I was serious about this.
 
Today (Sunday) I had a client that called me and texted me in the morning. I told them in my text response that they lived in a different world than mine - and promptly fired them.

I have to admit I get a kick out of firing clients. Too old to put up with people I don't like.
 
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