Next Time Say “Why Not?”

(I work in the United States and work closely with the London office of my company. It should be noted that I do almost all of the paperwork for the London office, and just email them the documents when they are completed. If I get a high volume of work, I sometimes do not have time to proofread my work as closely as I would like and depend on my colleague in the London office to catch the mistakes. Sometimes our calls go like this:)

Colleague: “[My Name], why is this information missing? I gave it to you.”

Me: “Because I forgot to put it in?”

Colleague: “[My Name], why did you spell this client’s name without the ‘I’? It should have an ‘I.’”

Me: “Because I made a typo?”

Colleague: “[My Name], why did you not send me that document for [Client] when you sent it for the other clients in that group?”

Me: “Because I forgot to add his document as an attachment?”

(It’s not the fact that he points out my mistakes, but that he always asks “Why?” when there is always an obvious explanation!)