This is Signal vs. Noise, a weblog by 37signals about design, business, experience, simplicity, the web, culture, and more. Established 1999 in Chicago. Visit the Product Blog for more information on our products.

You should have an email from me. :)

Mine sent as well. Good luck finding the right person.

Me too!

I thought you guys said you wanted to read all those emails yourselves so you stay in touch with your customer base?

Bummer, I understand you needing to scale to get bigger, but it was really cool when you responded personally to my support email :/

Hi, I’ve been Lurking.

I decided to do some loose math on this one:

Really quick answers: 75 emails X 1 min. = 75 min.

A touch more involved: 37.5 emails X 2 min. = 75 min.

The rest: 37.5 emails X ~8 min. = ~300 min.

450 minutes, 7.5 hours, just taking care of the emails.

Add the forums to that. Jason, it’s amazing you’ve programmed anything at all during this time!

And here I was hoping that I could be your support guy on top of my regular job… sniff!

Sloan: It would still be ‘you guys’ since I’m guessing the new hire would be an official part of 37 Signals. Therefore, someone from 37 Signals would read all the e-mails regardless ;-)

Are you looking for FT or PT? Hours? Pay? Benefits?

Thanks! :)

Try posting on the job board.

I thought some of the responsibilities of the sysadmin you hired was to responsed to customer requests (support emails).

http://jobs.37signals.com/jobs/356

Hank,

Likely someone would pass any technical queries to Mark, but act as a frontline support, after all he does have a job to do :)

Jason,

Just sent you an e-mail, just south of you down here in the STL ! :)

rex

“450 minutes, 7.5 hours, just taking care of the emails. Add the forums to that. Jason, it’s amazing you’ve programmed anything at all during this time!”

Ha! I’m guessing you don’t know many entrepreneurs. The day is barely half over at 7.5 hours.

Sorry guys, I know I was your first choice but I’m just too busy at the moment.

Okay, but only if I can use Highrise Ultra Max Unlimited to managed the support requests :-)

Ah … no wonder nobody answered my BaseCamp email tech support request. Would I still be in the queue? Will you have to hire before someone gets back to me?

“Bummer, I understand you needing to scale to get bigger, but it was really cool when you responded personally to my support email :/”

You guys complaining about this are retarded. Go read “the e-myth” or, better yet, open up a lemonade stand. You don’t grow to become one of the most meaningful companies in the next 20 years by doing it all on your own. You need to work on your business opposed to in it.

Ben Mc knows what’s up. You are just hitting your stride at 7.5 hours ;-)

Have you guys noticed no where in this product are support tickets?

This is one of the most personal and meaningful companies I have ever bought a product from.

I would love to be apart of it.

Interesting contrast: “passionate about helping people” ... “I can’t promise I’ll respond to each one”.

J:

Helping people !always= responding to every email you get.

At one point I would’ve seriously considered dropping everything to work for you guys—in fact I till feel a twinge in my email-sendy finger… ;)

All the best finding the right person, Signals!

(On another note, will there be any mention on here of Marcel’s move? Just curious)

J: Saying “I can’t promise I’ll respond to each one” is not a failure to help people. It’s setting appropriate expectations.

It’s no more helpful to commit to replying to every applicant. That would be a tedious task, and it would eat into Jason’s time for helping customers. All for the sole benefit of notifying people that they were unsuccessful. Jason’s statement simply means that we’ll be watching SvN for an announcement, instead of watching our email for a negative response.

Negative response? Says you!

Yes, in the case of 37signals, people may indeed just be watching SvN. In general, hower, not replying to applications – not even with a standard “sorry, you’re not hired” message – is rather rude towards the applicants. Sending a reply will allow them to direct their focus on other job openings.

Of course, this behaviour is quite common for many companies, but it’s not something I would have expected from 37signals.

Can we Canucks apply, or does that do nasty things to the tax requirements?

I did customer support for a small business for about 4 years, handling anywhere from 50-150 emails per day. My grammar and spelling skills are excellent. I’m in the Phoenix, AZ area and am very interested in this job. Any other information you can send me will be greatly appreciated!

Looking forward to a response! -Becky

Alright, alright, pipe down everyone. I sent Jason an email, so the job is as good as mine. Too bad, suckers!! lol JOKING of course!!! ;)

Holy cats! I was on an RSS -break and didn’t see this right away. I hope I’m not too late!

Sorry Jason, but I have my own business.

I know you’re crushed ( COUGH ) ... but our paths will cross in the future on a different plane.

Hi Mike,

“Alright, alright, pipe down everyone. I sent Jason an email, so the job is as good as mine. Too bad, suckers!! lol JOKING of course!!! ;)”

That’s only because I haven’t applied;-)

@Becky Grammar and spelling… check. Following directions…. ehhh not so much. :P

Good luck finding the right fit fellas.

I’d love to give it a try, but I’m way over on the other side of the planet. :P

The workaround solution might be to equipped myself with a Blackberry first, drop in my resume, hopefully in due course, I’d get a reply from Jason.

O… well, let’s see how it goes.

I think I can do that. Especially regarding my client philosophy