Thanks for reaching out!

I'm happy to help. If you need something from me, the fastest option is email instead of chat. I want to make sure you get what you need from the Cloudflare One team and email is the best way to do that.

I'm sorry if this feels rude; I promise that being standoffish is not my intention. Instead, I want to make sure you can rely on me and my team by avoiding the pitfalls of chat. If you're curious about why that is, please read on. If this intro makes enough sense, feel free to skip my manifesto below and send over that email.

What is the problem with chat?

Like everyone here at Cloudflare, I receive a lot of chat messages. On one hand, I love that - one of my favorite things about my role is I get to work with so many people across Cloudflare. On the other hand, that is dangerous - chat is a terrible medium for nearly all use cases.

• Google Chat does not allow you to star a message. I routinely read a message and then fail to get back to it.
• I work on products where incidents are very real and very painful. If I have my phone in my hand, I'll check your message to make sure it is not an emergency. However, if you need something that requires more real work, having the request as an email makes sure that I get to it.
• I'm part of our Lisbon team and that puts me in a weird time zone. Sometimes I'll read chat messages that came in over night when I wake up, but I'm doing that on my phone before coffee while trying to walk two massive dogs, and responding to the request really needs a laptop, so I'll hold off on the ask and then eventually will fail to get back to it because of the avalanche of other messages.

Why email?

• I maintain inbox zero. If you send me an email, I'll get back to you. Every time. Your email will haunt me as a real task until I respond to it.
• Years ago I built stuff. Today, people much better than me at building things lead our products. This is wonderful and I get to spend my time thinking about how they have the tools, encouragement, and opportunities to obsess over our customers. That also means you might need one of them instead of me. With email, I can quickly connect you to the team member that you need thanks to a forward or reply.

When to use chat.

• You're part of the ZT PM team, the Product org, or the ZT Eng org and need to check in quickly on something.
• We're already working closely on a tracked project.

Is there something better than email?

Yes! If you tag me in a JIRA ticket, not only do I get an email about it, but I can go read the context in the ticket myself and respond there in a way that others can follow along.

Sam, this is a bizarre and wordy policy. What other weird efficiency topics do you think about?

I enjoy writing about how I work. I do not do it to "build a brand" or advocate for some methodology. Instead, I put my thoughts into writing on certain subjects to help assemble ideas. If you've made it this far and want to keep reading, check out my blog.