Not just professors, some engineers do that as well as it annoys the hell out of others.
Like, I asked you a detailed question with 3 issues, all numbered and requiring separate feedback and you reply me with “Sounds about right to me”.
Like gtfo.
If I ask more than one question, and someone answers one of them, my opinion of their intellect drops considerably. From that point forward I will communicate with them like a child, and written communications will take 5x longer because messages have to be restricted to one question max.
I had a manager more than once that responded with “y” for affirmative and “I’m ignoring you” was no. One of those guys said if he didn’t get back to you in am hour resend or track him down because he didn’t read “below the fold” in his inbox (this was when we used email for everything).
That’s hilarious… by “below the fold” do you mean anything outside the message preview, example:
Smith, John
Re: Discussion with Client A
Hi Mike, I wanted to hear your thoughts on…
If he had to hit “page down” in the Inbox folder to see your email, he wasn’t going to see it.
He owned the business and it was right at the tail end of that time when if you wanted a web site you had to deal with some guys who were probably taking you for a ride, didn’t care about customer service, and charged based on their mood that day. Having lived through that brief era, I am glad it’s in the rear view. I didn’t like treating customers like that and did my best to not do so!
Sent from iPhone
Every professors signature responding to my carefully crafted email
This happens in every company as well. The lower down the totem pole, the more legible your emails.
New guy sends a carefully crafted, 6-paragraph email with context, analysis, decision point, options and recommendations, summarising a month’s worth of work.
CEO’s email, sent during another meeting: “ok. mak sure bob knows so it dosen’t impact projext wildebeest”
The new guy has to scramble to figure out who’s bob and what’s wildebeest, and it turns out the CEO meant Peter instead of Bob
Are people really using GPT to turn brief emails into paragraphs of waffle?
Some people, sure. It’s usually more something like “rewrite my (casually written) text to sound like a professional email” and ChatGPT is gonna add all the business lingo fluff.
What’s becoming mainstream these days:
Sender uses ChatGPT/Copilot/Bard to turn content summary into a big professional Email.
Receiver uses ChatGPT/Copilot/Bard to break down the big professional email into summary.
Time is saved but what a wastage of electricity (LLMs need GPU computation for faster output)!
Lol I use ChatGPT to convert HR professionnel sounding emails into bullet points
Crazy, because HR used ChatGPT to turn bullet points into a professional sounding email.
I can whip up a multisentence corteous mail in 1.3 secs without chatGPT and not even bat an eye. Courtesy of working in a huge company.