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Originally posted by Sparklehorse
In my (limited) experience, it plays out more like your second example.
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Yeah, usually. People are barbarians. In that case, the best I can offer is "my schedule is fairly eratic. Let me know when you have a specific time in mind."
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Just curious, do you apply the mailbox rule to dating? If A asks B out via email, is it okay for B to decline/dump A via email?
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Yes, more or less. General rule is you must always respond to an invitation in at least as formal a style as it was issued, you may never respond in less formal a manner, but going more formal is OK (except: never issue a formal response to anything but a formal invitation, formal being third person wording with the lines centered on the page - typical wedding invitation/response format). So, in declining steps of formality: formal response for formal invitation, letter for letter, e-mail for e-mail (e-mail being more formal than a phone call, since it is quasi in writing, though no one realizes this, least of all clients who send bad things to distribution lists), phone call for phone call, in person response for in person invite. I haven't decided where an e-vite falls in all of this - it is in writing, I guess, but suffers greatly for being an impersonal mass-thing. I guess e-mail suffers from that, too, unless your list is all bccs. Hmm.
Very gracious people will respond to everything by letter - even phone invitations are met with "We got your message - Max and I will be delighted to come to dinner on the 8th. Look forward to seeing you then. Bunny" If you keep stationery and stamps around as a rule, the observant will notice that scrawling these few lines is actually much more time efficient than calling up and getting roped into a whole conversation about not much, and no less efficient than typing out an e-mail, and therefore is highly recommended for the busy lawyer. I wish I could say I do this, but I somehow cannot manage to keep stamps around.
