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Shortcuts: The Anxiety of the Unanswered E-Mail

April 19, 2013 by Leave a Comment

OVER the last few weeks, I’ve repeatedly run up against one of the classic frustrations of modern life — sending out e-mails and hearing nothing back.

In this case, it was business-related and the issues were resolved, later rather than sooner. But like everyone else, I’ve also had times when friends seem to inexplicably drop out of sight and my mind races as I pick through our past interactions, wondering if I’ve somehow offended them.

It’s not just e-mails. Unreturned phone calls, texts and messages via social media can be just as irritating. But I’m going to concentrate on e-mails because for most people (teenage sons excepted), they are the most common tool of business and personal communication.

A large part of the problem, said Terri Kurtzberg, an associate professor of management and global business at Rutgers Business School, is that in face-to-face or phone conversations, “it’s clear how long a silence should last before you need to respond,” she said. “There’s no norm with digital communication.”

The nonresponders — the ones who regularly let e-mails slide through the cracks — are at the opposite end of the spectrum from the constant responders. Those are the ones who can barely look up from their smartphones, even while walking or dining, because they are so intent on answering every query.

I’ve written about the problem of expecting instant responses. So this time I’m going to focus on the laggards. I was curious to hear their side of the story, so I sent out the question to friends (via e-mail) and out over some Web sites.

I was somewhat surprised to get so many responses from people who went into quite some detail explaining why they don’t respond to e-mails.

First of all, I’m talking about answering friends or colleagues, not people you don’t know who are trying to sell or pitch something.

Lack of time and too many e-mails are the most common reasons people say they don’t reply (although some of the busiest people I know are the most prompt responders). Checking their e-mails on one device, like a smartphone, making a mental note to reply more in-depth later, and then forgetting, is another. And, of course, there’s always the possibility your e-mail ended up in the junk or spam folder.

But there are more emotional reasons as well. One is fear of commitment or a hesitation to say no. My friend Janine said she would drop the ball when she was invited to something she didn’t want to go to but thought she should.

“I want to say ‘no’, but feel that the right thing is to say ‘yes’, so I am frozen and then I plan on going back to the e-mail to draft a reply, but it gets buried,” she said. “Then I feel even worse for not replying and put it off again. It’s not nice to leave people hanging, but I do.”

Over the last few years, Adam Boettiger, a digital marketing consultant based in Portland, Ore., said, “We’ve seen an increase in the nonresponse rather than just politely declining. You delete it and hope it goes away, just like if someone comes to your door and you pretend you’re not home.”

Notoya Green, of Manhattan, knows both sides. When she worked as a lawyer, “I used to live by my BlackBerry. If people didn’t respond, I thought it was unprofessional and rude.” Now, the mother of 2-year-old triplets, she’s the one no one can get hold of.“If people send me a message that I don’t want to deal with, it’s easier not to respond,” Ms. Green said. “At this stage, there are so many requests from my children, I can’t deal with requests from adults.”

While time is the major factor, it’s not the only one. Like many others, Ms. Green said she may feel uncomfortable turning people down, so she will just ignore the query.

E-mail: shortcuts@nytimes.com

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/20/your-money/the-anxiety-of-the-unanswered-e-mail.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

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Your Money: U.S. Trails Much of the World in Providing Paid Family Leave

February 22, 2013 by Leave a Comment

It was time for his first day of day care, my time at home over in a blink.

Still, I knew I was relatively fortunate. The first eight weeks of my leave were paid, and I had tacked on another three weeks of paid vacation. Plus, my employer permits workers to take up to six months of unpaid leave.

A large majority of new parents in this country are not so lucky. It is no secret that when it comes to paid parental leave, the United States is among the least generous in the world, ranking down with the handful of countries that don’t offer any paid leave at all, among them Liberia, Suriname and Papua New Guinea.

The American situation hasn’t materially improved since the landmark Family and Medical Leave Act was signed into law 20 years ago this month by President Clinton. The law requires larger employers and public agencies to provide up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave — as well as continuation of health benefits — for the birth or adoption of a child, or to care for an opposite-sex spouse, a parent or a child who has fallen ill (or to deal with your own health problem).

But about 40 percent of workers fall through the cracks because the law only requires many companies with 50 or more employees to comply. To get the benefit, employees must also have worked for the company for at least a year and logged 1,250 hours within the last 12 months. And lots of people simply cannot afford to take unpaid leave.

“This was really intended as a first step,” said Vicki Shabo, director of work and family programs at the National Partnership for Women and Families, referring to the law, which the group helped write. “People really see this as an individual struggle that they need to be responsible for rather than the societywide, systemic issue it is.”

But expanding the policy’s reach has been painfully slow. Some states have taken it upon themselves to bolster the rules and now cover a broader swath of workers or provide some paid leave. And companies that tend to work the hardest to lure employees, including Google, have gone much further to fill in the governmental gaps. (The Bucks personal finance blog will begin to track companies’ parental leave policies. So please let us know about your employer’s rules in the comments section.)

Despite the myriad benefits of paid leaves, the number of employers that offer the time off is dismal. “We know maternity leave is associated with lower infant mortality rates,” said Jody Heymann, dean of the Fielding School of Public Health at the University of California, Los Angeles, and author of the new book “Children’s Chances: How Countries Can Move from Surviving to Thriving.” She added: “This makes sense. As well as receiving more one-on-one care, infants are more likely to be breast-fed, which lowers illness and hospitalization rates for infants and benefits women’s health. Beyond the marked health advantages, paid maternity leave yields economic gains in terms of reduced health care costs, reduced recruitment and retraining and improved long-term earnings for women.”

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, only 11 percent of all private industry workers have access to paid family leave (16 percent of state and local government employees have access to some paid family leave; federal workers don’t get any, though all employees may be able to use accrued sick leave). Well-paid people who work in managerial or professional occupations at companies with 100 employees or more are the most likely to have the benefit, according to the Institute for Women’s Policy Research.

Even the policies at some of the most generous American companies pale in comparison with the 31 countries that provide a year or more of paid maternity leave, typically through government-run insurance programs, experts say. Working Mother compiles a list of the “100 Best Companies” in the United States each year, and parental leave policies are one of several factors baked into those rankings.

Even among the standouts, the average time off in 2012 was seven weeks of fully paid maternity leave, while new fathers received an average of three paid weeks, up from two weeks in 2008. Parents adopting children received an average of six weeks. Keep in mind that the list is not exhaustive. Companies must apply to get on and be willing to fill out a 550-item questionnaire. They must also have at least 500 employees and offer some form of paid maternity leave.

Google beefed up its paid leave for new mothers in 2007 to five months after company officials realized that women were leaving the company at twice the rate of men. After the change, attrition dropped by half. New fathers receive seven weeks of paid leave, as do adoptive parents and other parents who don’t physically give birth, including same-sex partners.

“What one person might get is an accident of where you happen to work or where you happen to be,” Ms. Shabo said. “Instead, what we need are public policies that provide a basic level of protection.”

Ron Lieber will be on book leave until the end of 2013.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/23/your-money/us-trails-much-of-the-world-in-providing-paid-family-leave.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

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Rivet Manufacturing Flaw Suspected in Jet’s Roof

April 26, 2011 by Leave a Comment

The National Transportation Safety Board, in an interim report, said that a laboratory examination of intact sections of the roof found that rivet holes on one layer of the plane’s skin did not line up properly with an underlying layer. The board also said that it found paint from the exterior of the plane had bled through into the inside. Experts said that suggested the aluminum skin had not been properly bound together, leading to premature damage from fatigue.

The board, as is its practice, did not draw any conclusions about the cause of the rupture, which occurred at 34,000 feet. It will not do so until research is complete and its five members receive a report from the staff, something that will probably not happen for months. But outside experts said that the 15-year-old Boeing 737 probably left the factory with flaws.

“It means the assembly was wrong, it means the wrong tools were used, it means they were careless in drilling the holes, and maybe the drill was dull,” said John J. Goglia, an aircraft maintenance expert who is a former member of the safety board.

Robert W. Mann Jr., an aviation industry expert in Port Washington, N.Y., said such flaws were unusual. “The key issue is whether this was systemic,” he said. “ Why weren’t the parts rejected?”

Boeing, in a statement, said it would not speculate about the cause of the incident but that “we remain fully engaged with the investigation.”

The safety board said it was also examining the five other Southwest planes that were found to have cracks. Those five planes and the one that ripped open all had about 40,000 cycles of takeoffs and landings. After the Southwest incident, Boeing said it did not expect that these models of 737s needed to be inspected before at least 60,000 cycles.

In an emergency order days after the incident, the Federal Aviation Administration ordered airlines flying those planes to check for cracks at 30,000 cycles.

The six planes were delivered by Boeing from 1994 to 1996. Boeing said it had completed a worldwide inspection of nearly 80 percent of 190 similar 737s and found no other problems.

An F.A.A. official involved in the investigation, who asked not to be identified because the agency had not taken a formal position, said it was too soon to know whether the agency’s inspection order would have detected bad riveting. But the official added that the results of that inspection did not show that there was any generic problem. In fact, it was possible that the Southwest airplane had a one-of-a-kind problem, the official said.

If the rivet holes on the two pieces of aluminum being fastened together did not line up right, that would mean they were egg-shaped instead of round, Mr. Goglia said. As the two pieces of metal were pulled in opposite directions when a plane is pressurized and depressurized, round holes would spread the forces evenly around the circumference of the hole. But if the hole is egg-shaped, he said, “they’re concentrated in one spot.”

The aviation industry is well acquainted with cracks developing around rivets as airplanes age. In April 1988, an Aloha Airlines plane peeled open almost like a sardine can, resulting in new inspection requirements. But that plane had 89,000 takeoffs and landings.

Hans J. Weber, owner of Tecop International, an aviation consulting firm in San Diego, said that manufacturing flaws were rare. “This is a real puzzle,” he said. “I am not fully satisfied with the explanation. The manufacturing of aluminum airplanes is very well understood.”

Mr. Mann said he was concerned about the paint. “These are not small defects that you could have wicking of the liquids,” Mr. Mann said. “Paint is not a thin substance. It is pretty substantial.”

If the parts were not the perfect shape as they came to the manufacturing plant, “that creates the necessity to redrill, which creates the ovalization,” Mr. Mann said, leading the parts to wear.

Analysts pointed out that there had been several problems in 1990s with planes that had been miswired or misassembled.

With major manufacturers like Boeing, the F.A.A. usually uses company employees to act as its designee in carrying out inspections, although it intermittently reviews their work. Mr. Mann said that in effect, “the F.A.A. designates the manufacturer as their own judge and jury.”

Matthew L. Wald reported from Washington and Jad Mouawad from New York.

Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=383b8316925d77cb509a1bf7f0d1ccb9

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U.S. Cracks Down on Online Gambling

April 15, 2011 by Leave a Comment
Opinion »

Disunion: Lincoln Declares War

An examination of the language in Lincoln’s Proclamation of April 15, 1861.

Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=d28130a80a0de4f5a03b4da36b2c2c6e

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Boeing Says It Didn’t Expect Cracks in 737s So Soon

April 6, 2011 by Leave a Comment

Paul Richter, a senior Boeing engineer, said that the company had thought the jets would not be vulnerable to serious cracks in their skin until “much, much later,” and that it was surprised that its safety projections were so far off the mark.

He said Boeing had expected the aluminum skin and the supporting joints on the planes to last through 60,000 cycles of takeoffs and landings before airlines need to be concerned about cracks. But the Southwest jet had nearly 40,000 cycles, according to federal regulators.

Boeing’s stark admissions underscored how regulators and industry officials were struggling to understand the broader ramifications of the accident.

The Federal Aviation Administration said it would require inspections of at least 175 of the older Boeing planes after every 500 flights until the problems are better understood. And analysts said the problems could eventually lead to more extensive inspections of a wider variety of aging planes. Southwest, meanwhile, said it had found minor subsurface cracks in a total of five other 737s since the accident on Friday forced that jet to make an emergency landing at a military base.

Southwest has been buffeted by questions about how intensely it operates its planes. But in describing how surprised Boeing was by the accident, Mr. Richter came to the defense of the airline, Boeing’s largest customer.

Noting that Southwest operates more 737s than any other airline, Mr. Richter said he thought its involvement in the accident “was just a statistical event far more than anything to do with Southwest and how they operate the aircraft.”

But the new information about how soon the fatigue set in raised concerns among aviation safety experts about how much progress the industry had made on such issues, which burst into view when a large section of the roof of a 737 flown by Aloha Airlines ripped open in 1988 and a flight attendant was sucked out of the plane.

John J. Goglia a member of the National Transportation Safety Board from 1995 to 2004, said the Southwest incident once again highlighted a problem with older aircraft that endured tens of thousands of pressurization cycles.

“We’re talking about the same issues today, and we’re proposing the same fixes,” he said. “We need to take a few of these high-cycle airplanes and run them through a very vigorous inspection program and see where we can identify deficiencies, and see whether there is anything different than what the manufacturer thought there would be. But I don’t see that happening because it is expensive.”

Mr. Richter, the chief engineer for Boeing’s older 737 models, told reporters that Boeing had felt so confident about the joints that it had not planned to tell airlines to inspect that part of the plane until it reached 60,000 cycles.

He also said Boeing had redesigned the joints — where overlapping pieces of the outer skin are riveted together — in 1993 after weaknesses appeared in an earlier version.

After the Aloha accident in 1988, Boeing introduced hundreds of modifications to several of its 737 models. It also recommended that airlines replace joints after 50,000 cycles for the more than 2,000 737s it had already produced.

Mr. Richter said the changes in 1993 were expected to make a row of rivets that fasten the flaps of skin together — also known as lap joints — hold up better against the tensions caused by repeated pressurization and depressurization.

When the joints are stressed by that pressure, “you get a slight rotation of the material that causes a bending in the skin, right at or adjacent to where this row of fasteners is located,” he said. “And it’s a combination of the pressure loads in flight and the bending that promotes fatigue growth at a faster rate.”

Aviation experts said that Boeing might have been too confident about the durability of the new design. “When you model something you make assumptions,” Mr. Goglia said, “and if your assumptions are weak, your outcome is compromised.”

Mr. Richter said that the newest generations of 737s — starting with the 600 series that entered service in 1998 and known as the Next-Generation 737 — incorporated significant design changes intended to reduce the chance of lap joint cracking. These changes reduce the amount of bending.

Large cracks are rare, though they seem to be appearing with more frequency in recent years, including an incident involving a larger Boeing 757 last October in which a 1-foot by 2-foot hole opened up as the plane was flying at 31,000 feet. The F.A.A. issued an airworthiness directive in January mandating that airlines inspect their Boeing 757-200s and 300s, after it received several reports of cracking in the fuselage skin of roof panels.

In July 2009, another Southwest flight between Nashville and Baltimore, also a Boeing 737-300, experienced a rapid decompression when an 18-inch hole opened up while the plane was flying at 35,000 feet. The N.T.S.B., in its report on the incident, said the hole was caused by “continuous fatigue cracks initiated from multiple origins on the inner surface of the skin.” Those occurred near a step formed at the edge of aluminum panels that had been chemically milled.

Mr. Richter said this was fundamentally different from the latest incident on the Southwest flight. In the latest event, the cracks apparently formed inside the holes that fastened two pieces of metal together, he said.

Under an emergency directive issued by the Federal Aviation Administration on Tuesday, all of the planes with more than 35,000 flight cycles must be inspected within five days. Those with 30,000 to 35,000 cycles must be examined within 20 days, and Mr. Richter said that a total of 570 planes, including 737-300s, 400s and 500s built from 1993 and 2000 — could eventually require the inspections as they reached those milestones.

Christine Hauser contributed reporting.

Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=b6a432545c1e356dd06cebd72f4c1560

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