From the way this post is written, I think you don't realize how vague your communication style is. Too many possible interpretations of what you said makes it hard to even follow the story you laid out.

Who emailed who about what?

How did someone resend an email that someone else sent?

Re-sending would mean the same coworker sent the email twice.

On rereading, I think you meant that one coworker sent an email to the client, then another coworker that you are having trouble with also sent the same email to the same client.

So, to answer your question, I think they arrive at a different conclusion because they see things differently. Anything that can be interpreted differently will be interpreted differently. The other co workers think they're giving this person set values when in fact they're handing them a set of variables and expecting only one result.

Have you considered events from their perspective? From what you've described, they were told to wait until a notification was sent, then they were given a notification with the instruction "send this". If it was me my first thought would absolutely be that that's the notification to be sent, the only reason I'd hesitate is because those sort of communications are well outside my job description.

The reason they sent the product afterwards is obvious; they were told to send them after the notification was sent, and they had sent the notification.

From what you've described, you are communicating incredibly poorly then blaming your workers for misunderstanding.

I'll join the others here saying that it's very unclear what you're requesting, what your colleagues did, what they were supposed to do, and what actually happened.

It may serve you well to look inwards for a solution to your problem.

If the writing in the post is any indication of the level of writing and communication at work, OP needs to work on their communication skills.

Is he maybe just a really literal person and took the forwarded email with instructions "send THIS to them" as "send this email to them", but then he knows his work responsibility is to send the product, hence why he sent both the product and the email?

Do you have an SOP or exact steps to follow written down in a very clear, concise manner (yes, even something as simple as "after employee A sends the email, employee A will notify employee B to send out the product by forwarding the customer email to employee B"; I'm talking reaaaallly literal steps here)?

Can you give other examples of times he's messed up in a similar way?

Does he have poor reading comprehension? ADHD?

I train employees a lot in my current job and jobs prior and I've learned that everyone interprets things differently and learns at their own pace. Most times you can adapt to their style, but sometimes people are just mentally out to lunch 24/7 and not fit for the job.

My wife told me, "please go to the store and buy a carton of milk and if they have eggs, get six."

When I came back with 6 cartons of milk she said, "why in the hell did you buy six cartons of milk?"

I said "they had eggs."

Sometimes being extremely specific helps some people understand. Anything that could have multiple meanings is always open to some interpretation. And while it would be nice if they asked for clarification, they may not because they think they fully understand the instructions.

Sounds like the instructions were unclear so the person implemented all possible interpretations in order to avoid any misinterpretation causing problems. If they were forwarded an email and told to send "this" to someone, I can easily see that being interpreted as the email itself. Especially if this wasn't the first time your instructions were unclear and they got in trouble for not guessing the right interpretation. Being more clear and saying "the product" instead of just "this" might help or even saying the name of the product. Good communication is about being precise, but brief.

If people are always having to guess your intentions, then some are going to get it right and some won't. Some will learn how you think and how to interpret your vague instructions and some won't. But if you learn better communication skills to be more direct in your instructions and leave fewer things open to interpretation, then there won't be any need for people to guess your intentions. Remember, no one else has the information in your head, only the information in your communication.

Might be a high functioning autist? If he got sent the notification email, he could interpret "go and send this" as what he is supposed to send, and thus the logic of shipping the product afterwards kicks in and he also sends that. Just my two cents as a fellow high functioning autist...

Most people would understand

...and some people would not understand.

If you want that the other party understands, then you need to be specific.

intended recipients of the product

Do you mean "the customer"?

The way you communicate (at least in English) is needlessly convoluted.

You already know they interpret your instructions incorrectly. You admitted yourself that, that is the problem. The solution in my world would be to give better instructions.

Have we started to get reddit style bait on lemmy now? There's no way someone can communicate so poorly in this and multiple responses while blaming someone else for not understanding.

It's pretty funny, I'll give you that.

I wish I knew. I have a coworker who flat out doesn't understand anything about his job and causes others to do all his work for him. He has been employed with us for a year and has barely improved. I personally would never give him a task because I know he'd fuck it up royally, causing a day task to be become a 5 day task while wasting hours of other people's time.

I have tried talking to managers about him and they won't listen. I cannot understand how he's not been fired. The motherfucker clearly is not working 90% of the time. His slack status shows him offline almost always, he doesn't respond to emails or GitHub notifications. He opens about 1 pull request per two weeks, and most of them have 50 or more comments from other developers pointing out the same mistakes he always makes. I think every single task he's successfully completed has been via pair programming, and when I've been involved it's been painful how little he gets. Baffling shit.

Though language is an effective means of communication, it's not perfect.

To use an example, there was a meme about a literature professor quoting from a book and telling students what the author meant by mentioning the curtains being blue in a scene. As they go on and on about the melancholy and sadness the author was known to experience at the time, Samuel L Jackson busts in through the door and yells "The color was blue because the curtains were blue, motherfucker!"

Or am I remembering it wrong? Anyway, language is open to interpretation and as such, people will interpret it openly.

some people hate legalese, but after reading the situation, I think legalese is made for this sort of problems.

some people learn by example better than following instructions.

also context plays a lot when it comes to instructions. try to see things ahead if played in different contexts.

Not sure why so many people here comment that your communication style is vague.

Both instructions and issue are clear. Send product after notification was sent via mail. Colleague did that and aso sent the mail again, which had already been sent.

Why people are talking about the product being sent as the issue in thus scenario is beyond me.

As for a solution: Let them repeat back to you what they're supposed to do in their own words to verify you're both on the same page, before the do what they need to do.

If you have tried this unsuccessfully, I have no further suggestions without a whole lot more detail except for: ask theco worker in question how they would have phrased the task if they had given it to someone else. Try and learn what their style of communication is and adjust for that particular colleague.

It's fine if they get it wrong, you explain how you actually wanted it so they understand and then get it right, sometimes you have to spell out what you mean.

If you explained and showed what you wanted and how, after their mistake, then a 2nd or 3rd time they screw up in the same way that's an issue. Words can mean different things to people.

If it's a different screw up each time, and they aren't intentionally being obtuse, then you could probably be clearer or explain yourself better.

How to work with someone that regularly arrives as the wrong answer?

Yes.