Show "Read" on Owls

I don’t know how to stress this enough, but it feels like a lot of the time I am being ignored by staff when it comes to something that is urgent. I feel like they either don’t read my owl, or they lose it, or it gets read and ignored. I would like to have an indicator that my owl has been read, not only to soothe my own anxieties, but also because I would like to know whether I have to bump it again or resend because it didn’t get through after a month instead of waiting in vain for assistance.

Benefits:

• It would me know if the owl may have buried in their owls after a week and I need to send again

• It would help smooth out communication and prevent accusations of “nagging”

• It would save an “okay I’ve read your owl” from the recipient

• It would let me know I am not being ignored and assure me that at least they are made aware of my message

• It would make me feel heard, even if I don’t get an immediate reply

• It would encourage patience because they at least know to wait for a reply

Losses:

• You could still ignore someone by not even opening the owl to begin with

• People might feel exposed and feel like they owe a reply after a short time period

• Reading a request and not replying to it may make you feel like you own someone an explanation

• You can’t unread an owl (if you could that would remove the entire point of this feature)

In example of how this would work:

Say I send an owl to a random staff. If it isn’t shown to be read in a week, I could send it again or bump it, so they see it if they haven’t.

If I sent a letter to a staff member, and they read it, but didn’t do anything about it, not even a response after a week, I could push for a response without it feeling like nagging.

If I were to get an owl from someone, and I did read it, and it was important, they could be reassured knowing I did read it, and that’s acknowledgement, and it may make them decide to wait a bit before sending another owl, asking for me to respond.

If I send an owl that is urgent (bullying report, harassment, homework theft, etc), and it is read, and no one responds for a week, and I send another request in a week, and that is ignored, and this happens in multiple instances over many weeks, then I could report them to a higher up for disciplinary action due to a potential neglect of duties, instead of allowing this to carry on where I just keep sending owls to someone’s answering machine.

Note: I understand that people are busy, and this of course is not directed at any individual in particular nor is it a suggestion that is intended to bring about a new method of stress and harassment, but I feel like this would be a quality-of-life improvement that could be used to prevent misunderstandings and frustrations across sites and is appealing to many individuals, especially like me. I have Autism and I need people to be clear and concise with me when it comes to messages, not just open-ended, vague replies or people ignoring me, as it is incredibly stressful for me as a person. Not everyone can just “infer” what the other is thinking, and for me as a person it would help settle communication issues that I may have.

Also, negativity aside — Happy Pride Month :)