shahine.com/omar/

One thing that I learned early in my career at Microsoft is that if you become the "go to guy" on your team, you get more visibility. More visibility helps you win at "the game". Why? Cause when people in your food chain or elsewhere in your company have never even met you, but you've been prompt and cordial with their communications to them, they are going to think you're a "good guy" and a "useful resource". As soon as you drop their email or question on the floor, you risk having the bozo bit flipped. This is especially true when you work in a remote campus and many of the folks you interact with are elsewhere.

Of course, actually meeting some one and getting to know them is much better, and once you build that trust communicating gets a lot different. But who has time for that? Microsoft is a culture where people in offices next door would rather email each other cause chances are you aren’t really in your office and who want to waste time finding out you aren’t there? Use the phone? hah!

Why am I writing this? cause Itzy has a good post on the topic.

Responsiveness tells me you have a handle on your job. Of course this doesn’t mean answer all your email on a Thursday night at 4 am. You risk trying to look like a Hero when you’re not. Respecting your own work life balance and that of others tells me you are on top of both your job and your life.

Of course there are going to be cases where dropping the email on the floor is the appropriate thing to do. This can be useful in cases where the question or nature of the question doesn’t even warrant a response. Chances are the question won’t ever be asked again cause it was never meant to be asked. You have to be careful when doing this, cause the last thing you want to do is burn bridges.