My rainbow cupcake was yummy.

A similar scenario plays out in different forms at least once a week for me. Several people I work with regularly - one's a reasonably smart guy who's lazy and hates his job so much he's in severe avoidance mode all the time, one's frankly just an idiot, and one is much too busy to read a WHOLE email. I'm convinced they don't open their emails; they just glance at what appears in the preview window. If they have to open them, they don't scroll down.

I have developed a strategy for writing emails, based on the famous "Tell them what you're going to tell them; tell them; tell them what you told them". I put the most important thing first, usually in the subject line ("Three things need to be fixed; please read"). Then I tell them what I'm going to tell them and how many "points" I will make ("Three things need to be fixed, as follows: (1) thing 1..."). Then, what followup I want, usually with a bullet point: "When these three things have been fixed, please send me an email informing me that all three things have been done." Basically I'm directing their singular point of attention from the first thing their eyes land on to the next thing I want them to be aware of, and then the next... It usually works.

Inevitably some idiot will reply to "Do not do X" with "I did X! Now what?" I believe these people cannot see negative or exclusionary words like "not", "except", "but", and "however". If I must use such words, I put them in asscaps. "Do NOT do X." It seems that I could say, e.g., "Instead of doing X, do Y" but their reply is likely to be "I did X, now what about Y?" This is because they will perform the first action mentioned to them, and often only that action. Also, they will not undo any action until specifically told to do so. The key to communicating with them seems to be to use only positive definitive statements, and include praise. "Do Z. Put X back the way it was before you did anything to it. Thank you for doing Y."

I get so tired of managing the insides of other peoples' heads just to get my job done.

What Zenkitty said about emails. Especially when you are trying to manage college students. They do not read.

There are also people I've worked with who must be visited in person if anything is to happen. This is problematic when the workplace is distributed.

I hate when people give me instruction like that, and so I try not to do it. But I have learned that especially with college students, you do have to!

Also, with many people, one topic per email is all they can handle. You can't say, "Please do X, and also remember that Y is due Thursday." You have to send two separate emails, one on each topic.

It's kind of like helping a 6 year old clean his room.

this whole topic is making me hate people.

the more was implied, right?

The way I help my 6--no wait, 7--year old clean his room is to walk in with a trash bag and offer to help.

this whole topic is making me hate people.

It's making me very grateful that I mostly don't have to work with other people, msbelle, so your reaction is understandable.

Zen, I swear I don't want to look condescending, but--fuck them. I am petty. I will say "as previously noted in this email chain" the umpteenth time I have to answer a question that's come up right there (while they were on the distribution list) so it's not even an issue of them searching their inbox or having deleted something. I do despise the guy who walks over to my desk the moment he hits send, because he will actively avoid me when it's time for him to answer my question. And he doesn't seem to realise that if he changes his answer from "I did X" to "I did (mutually exclusive) Y" within a minute, he did have to be lying one of those times. And I covered the bit where I'm petty, so do usually ask "But you said you did X. Which one is true?" I mean, if he's going to lie, I want him to earn it. It's not really the easy way out.

For me, my most successful tactic is the "next steps" section at the bottom of each topic. So they understand that I'm not just twiddling my thumbs--I've identified tasks, and some of them aren't mine-- get off your stupid ass and deliver. Except the liar from the previous paragraph will volunteer for All The Things, not do them, and then lie and say someone took it off his plate, and he's not sure why they aren't done yet.

I'm currently waiting for him to explain his coverage plans during his two weeks off (starting next week) which he hadn't broached with me (or declined meetings during) until an hour or so ago--backchannel is good for some things, but it shouldn't relieve anyone of their responsibilities.