[solatic]

Mostly cases where businesses rely on individuals instead of process.

As a simple example, it's very easy, when starting a company, to issue personalized email addresses to early employees and then people communicate using those email addresses. It's perfectly fine to email the CTO at [e-mail], because everyone knows everyone else and it works.

As you grow large, it becomes important for people to address roles rather than individuals. This way, if people leave their role, they can (semi-transparently) be replaced by someone else taking that role who will then continue to receive all of the same emails, be able to respond to them, etc. So then it becomes important to have e.g. a [e-mail] address. When the CTO takes a vacation, their email gets routed to someone taking over their duties, you don't need to communicate to everyone to start emailing [e-mail] instead.

[stevenwliao]

This isn't how any of my workplaces have worked. When someone leaves, they or their boss sends an email announcing the role changes. Which companies practice the role@ method?

[matrixagent]

Thanks, that's a great example. I've actually encountered this exact thing at my current employer as well.