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Comment by jrockway | Hacker News Reader

I think that it sounds harsh to say "I don't take meetings with no agenda", but is the right thing to do. Everyone wants your time, and it's the most valuable resource you possess, so being protective makes a lot of sense.

I wouldn't reply to someone's email and accuse them of "low-effort sales" or whatever. I'd just say "thanks, not interested" and then be internally mad at the low effort.

From the other side, I think that sales should be aware that these emails can read like "hey, we're going to shut you off unless you chat with me for 30 minutes" which is annoying. It would be nice to clarify that up front, to avoid the negative emotion associated with that prospect.

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> it sounds harsh to say "I don't take meetings with no agenda", but is the right thing to do

Evan's is the wrong way to do it. "I am busy–do you have specific recommendations you can share over email" is more concise, polite and to the point. (Ignoring the e-mail, or a simple not interested, are also options.) And if you want to use those words, fine, but leave off the "low effort" insults at the end.

I think it is useful, though, to teach people that it's disrespectful to send vague meeting requests without an agenda. Using your "I am busy -- do you have specific recommendations..." response obscures the real objection.

Certainly I think there's a better way of saying it than OP did, though: perhaps, "before we schedule anything, can you propose an agenda so we can both be sure a meeting is the best use of our time?" or something like that.

I would say that telling someone who emailed you in an unsolicited fashion that you have an expected protocol for interaction isn't in the wrong and putting that line first in an unambiguous way is practically required for how people read emails. They did ask for context after that line, which was fine. I will say that the 'low-effort' part of their phrasing could have been constructed better but the first reply was more in the scope of stern and terse than outright insulting and hostile. I feel like I have to answer dozens of emails like this in a similar fashion because then I get the form letter or PDF that they want to show me over a meeting or they actually give an agenda and I can make the appropriate decision for myself. Since there's an existing relationship here any ambiguity wastes everyone's time, if it was an unrelated entity then you can assume sales email but in this case you can't. Any moderate sized company or larger is a multi-headed hydra so it's never obvious what part of the beast you are talking to and why they are seeking you out.

There is a difference between saying "I like my meetings to be specific and driven by agenda , what are the points you like to discuss" and saying " I don't take meetings without agenda.

The OP could have ignored the email, or even marked spam it. If you take the effort to reply then do it courteously there is no excuse for being rude.

Well, if you read the exchange below, it might not be an insult after all. It definitely was low-effort: he started by saying that he admires Even's work, but then admitted it's just a formula and so on. Really, if the words you use have no meaning, why to use them? He is definitely not the worst of all salesmen I met, but not particularly bright, and the effort he put into the initial email wasn't really above average.

After reading the last comment on the task, he just seems oversensitive and hostile.

> I feel that your initial outreach was intentionally deceptive in a transparent and falsifiable way -- and for no reason. You could just as easily have said you were "interested" in Phabricator without being dishonest.

> It's important that I be able to trust people I do business with. It took you three words to violate my trust by lying to me.

It's okay to be annoyed with someone for using a standard email template. He takes it a step too far and accuses them of having malicious intentions when it's obviously not the case.

I just mark these kinds of emails as spam and move on - no point in replying really

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