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Where are you located?
Chalk this up as another pet peeve of mine in this day and age -- but a few times a week I get asked "Where are you located?" in an email. This question comes from all kinds of people: partner companies, visiting press folks, prospective employees, student interns... you get the idea.
Here's my problem with this (inane) question: please don't waste my time with something that is widely available with a few simple clicks of a mouse. On most company websites, you can easily find an "About Us" page. Simply navigate to the home page of the website, and scroll all of the way to the bottom of the page. 9 times out of 10 you will find a "About Us" page on the footer. From there, you can almost always find a "Contact" page.
Some of you reading this blog post might be thinking "but what if the address on the website is wrong?" Great question. For the record, I have no problem with someone emailing me and writing "I noticed that your website lists the address as 123 Main St, Suite 500 in Boston. Is that still the correct address?"
Please note that this advice does not apply if you are visiting a very large company or a company with multiple locations. If you can't find the address in less than two minutes online, then go ahead and ask over email.
This post was inspired by the most recent person who emailed me this question -- but don't feel bad Robert. You're just in a long line of others. And I'm guessing you won't be the last.
6:36 AM
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3 comments:
Thanks...
I've been burned by a number of About/Contact Us links where they just place an email and phone and not a physical address because they are working out of their mother's basement.
Still due diligence states I should have traveled there first...
Robert
In general I agree! But it's out of control how many links there are on a typical home page these days, with designs that makes links hard to see (or you have to hover to see if it's even a link.) So sometimes when someone chooses to email you that question they might be giving you tiny but useful feedback about your site design.
I usually look someplace for an About Us, but with home based tech startup businesses, I have been asked to interview for tech companies at:
Dunkin Donuts,
Starbucks,
Barnes and Noble, Borders etc.
I can even give the names of these companies if you wish.
I have gone to these addresses and they have been wrong, had street versus blvd on the web site, so I always ask the question.
Companies also branch off and change their locations and never update the site (Hughes/SRS did this) and had the old location as the address. What about Bose's campus consisting of multiple buildings?
So in my opinion, you should not get annoyed when asking "where are we meeting" because it's impolite in this day and age of forclosures, relocations etc. Like I always say: People do things differently in certain situations.
If you want to see a funny skit on impolite working conditions, you should rent dead like me and see the job the character georgia takes where she walks in the door and is pointed to a computer, and the owner won't speak to her. Quite hilarious.
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