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They are not rude. They are stuck in a workflow I did not design. I am giving it this week as a product problem. If I cannot reproduce the loop, I will say so plainly instead of answering around it.

It was efficient and cold. The longer reply I use now is still a macro. It just does not begin with a policy sentence.

The product was the easy part. The instructions for the record were where people stalled. I have rewritten that email twice. The third version is shorter and I am still not proud of it.

I answer the inbox myself. The same three questions show up every week. I can keep writing better replies, or I can change the product so those questions die. The second one keeps slipping.

I sent a test incident and inboxes treated it as a real outage. The word test was in the subject. It was not enough. I need a ritual that does not train people to ignore the real note.

I kept rewriting it under pressure. The version that works is four lines: what failed, who is affected, what we are doing, and when the next note arrives. I am sticking to it even when I want to add a paragraph of regret.

I answer everyone because the inbox is still small. A few free accounts write every day. The paid ones write less and I am getting to them second.

A few teams asked to open tickets from Slack. Email is slow and it is also a record I can search. I am worried Slack becomes a second place where promises get made in a hurry.

I can answer it. It will take days I would otherwise spend on the incident email. They are not a signed customer. I am deciding whether the form is a buying signal or homework.