Without going into too much details: Part of my job responsibilities is to write reports on certain test results. Then I submit the reports for the supervisors to review. When they find something that is not clear to them, they will send me an email and ask for clarification.
That's all fine and dandy. However, it really gets on my nerves when I get clarification questions on things I have already clearly explained in my reports. In those cases, all I can do is to repeat exactly what I have written in my original reports. There is no additional information I can provide, because I have already provided all the information I've got!
What do they expect me to do? Why can't they just take some time and read my reports closely? If they had paid attention, they would have gotten all the information they were seeking. Or, does that mean they just don't trust me, and want to test if my answers are inconsistent with my reports?
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Comments: 6
Is it possible that you have some background or knowledge that your supervisors don't have? Sometimes our explanations are clear to us because of what we already know. Another person reading the same report may not understand because they don't know something that seems obvious to you.
If supervisors frequently ask for further clarification of the obvious, I would just start spelling it out in the original report because it's easier to do oversimplify the first time than to clarify later.