www.fastcompany.com: There are some things you already know not to mention via email; political opinions, anything that could be considered sexual harassment, and office gossip are among the no-brainers. But there are also some less obvious topics and phrases you’d do well to stay away from, particularly if you want to come off as professional, competent, and on top of your workload. After all, emails can stick around for a long time, and you never know what might get dug up down the road.
12 comments:
This article is definitely a good read and is something everyone should keep in mind when sending office emails. I think one of the biggest flaws in our system at CMU, and in educational settings in general is that we all know each other. Even just from my few experiences in a formal office setting, sending emails, talking and communication in general can be nerve wrecking. It may be my sheer unfamiliarity with the situations, but I always wish I had a handy etiquette book next to me to know what to say and how I should respond. I thought this article provided some helpful advice. It of course covered some of the huge no-no's but it also went into some of the more finessed communication snafus. Most of the advice was about being more assertive with emails, which is definitely a helpful to new-comers to the office. Just from personal experience, even as a pretty combative person I tend to get very beat-around-the-bush when communicating with new people, especially in an intimidating setting like an office.
I agree completely with Marissa. I think that in the School of Drama, people get comfortable or can expect to get emails from teachers all hours of the day and night. I think in the future part of Meta/M.O.L.L.Y. skills should be on email etiquette. As text slang becomes more and more common and people communicate in faster and quicker ways, people need to be reminded how to formally talk. I am frequently worried about sounding rude or unprofessional when emailing teachers and I think that this article has definitely helped but I wish that our teachers would talk about this to us more as a freshman. I’m sure I will get more experience as the years go on though. From little experience working in the professional world and sending out emails to whole company databases, I have seen how much effort goes into crafting an email. This article for me is very helpful in adding to my soft skills. I am not surprised by any of the suggestions except the sorry for the delay one but I am surprised at myself for not noticing these simple things to leave out.
This article is very interesting as someone who is slowly writing more and more professional emails. A couple of the statements I agree you should not write some I do not agree with. The first one . “JUST A HEADS UP, I’M CALLING IN SICK TOMORROW” you should never email this to someone unless you know a family relative is sick and you will need to take care of them but if you just need to take the day off, keep your head low and just say it, do not give them a warning because it looks bad. One thing I do not agree with is “DOES TUESDAY STILL WORK FOR YOU TO RETURN THOSE DOCUMENTS TO ME, MAYBE AROUND 3 P.M.? NO WORRIES IF NOT” they said that you should be assertive but what if the project really is no big deal and can be done whenever so that when there are actual important projects people can prioritize.
I think that this is a great article for those of us who haven’t had to write so many professional emails in the world. Here at CMU we get a lot of emails and have to be in constant communication with our fellow peers, professors, and collaborators in order to work best for the team. The issue to some extent with this is we know exactly where and when to talk to someone face to face which is always easier then sending a professional work email. We sometimes have to personal of relationships with those we work with and we loose site of what the proper response would be in a professional environment. In the “real world” there is a proper style of communication and a rhetoric so that we can clearly communicate. Another huge part is that there is a different relationship in terms of who is hiring who and who chooses to be apart of the team and the power structure’s there in comparison with CMU Drama. Being a true professional is more then just the quality of your work it also has a lot to do with how you present yourself and communicate with others.
Email is dangerous. You cannot gauge how something typed in an electronic message is going to come across to the person reading it. There are some really good points here. In the corporate world, saying something like “no big deal” is not going to go over well. It shows you have a lazy attitude about work and if comes off as “ I don’t care about the work I do for this company”. Be open and honest. Deadlines are important, especially in the timeline of a project. Never email a sick message unless you have no voice. Again, it is about honesty. It is just as easy to pick up the phone that morning and make a courtesy call to your boss and often times faster than trying to type an email. Have personal conversations in person, not over email. I always like to remember something that was taught to me a long time ago, “If it’s written down, it’s evidence and can be used against you”. Always remember that the FBI can recover emails that were previously deleted. Nothing really disappears from the cloud.
I was not surprised by a lot of the phrases in this article other than the fact that people actually send them? Like, who is ever writing an email to a boss or coworker and says “this place really gets me down sometimes”. Your personal afflictions with the company is not really something to be discussed in a virtual context and if it’s actually an issue, many companies offer more appropriate and effective resources to vent about how you are feeling and conflict resolution. The only one that surprised me as actually being considered unprofessional is “apologies for the delay” because with the sheer amount of emails we receive on a daily basis, not everyone can be held accountable for every email, especially ones that require more than a simple question or confirmation answered. I understand the reason they put this phrase on here is to solidify language and make sure people know they should be direct, but you also have to be professional and polite.
I read through these tips and was relieved to find that I haven't fallen into the habit of writing any of these phrases into my emails. The tip that I found to be most helpful was Number 4:"“DOES TUESDAY STILL WORK FOR YOU TO RETURN THOSE DOCUMENTS TO ME, MAYBE AROUND 3 P.M.? NO WORRIES IF NOT”
Tentative language has no place in email, according to Amanda B. Gulino, HR expert and founder of A Better Monday. Instead, go for something like: “Have you had a chance to review the documents I sent over last week? Please review and return them to me by Tuesday at 3 p.m. so we can stay on track with our project plan.” By communicating assertively and clearly in work emails, you’ll project confidence and competence." I don't really use tentative language in emails, but I know I do use it when speaking to others in person. I think I do so to try and be as accommodating as possible.
This is a very good article, especially for us at CMU, because we employ a sort of casual approach towards emailing each other within the school. There may be some cases that foremal emails will be sent, such as communication with vendors or visiting directors, or simply official communication for shows, but apart from that, at the base of it, we all know each other, and the emailing gets to be pretty quick and casual around here. Quite honestly, I think that the faculty bear the brunt of the responsibility for this state of affairs. Every single student has had the experience of writing a very elaborate email asking " If please could I have the pleasure of meeting with you this friday afternoon or at your earliest convenience ma'am/sir" and received back from the professor "sounds good". It's disappoointing!
This article started off with some fairly basic, commonly known pieces of advice, but quickly ramps up into some pretty good advice. There are certainly things in this article that I do and never really think are wrong. But I suppose going into a professional environment it is good that I am reading this now. Granted, all articles like this are incredibly subjective and the people I work with might completely disagree. But, never-the-less, there are still some interesting things to think about and interesting perspectives that I will try to incorporate. I also wonder if these tips apply to all forms of professional email across all levels. A lot of these tips feel like they only apply to emailing people below you, but I wonder if that is the intention or I just don't get it. Also, does this apply to emailing professors or even people who you are applying to for a job.
It is so important to consider what one’s tone of voice sounds over email and text because it isn’t often enough considered how different it is than speaking to someone face to face. I think that being in an academic setting in which a level of professionalism and respect is mandatory, and because of that I think that we have a good idea of what is appropriate. That being said, it is really easy to get comfortable with a superior, or in our case a professor, and it is important to always keep in check the exact relationship of the person that you are speaking to. I think that something that is equally important that develops as a byproduct of considering exactly what language and formalities that one is using is a closer examination of the content being sent, so we become more careful to be abundantly clear in our language and with the information that we are trying to communicate.
What I am getting from this article is that I need to keep my emails concise, emotionless, and polite. What I found interesting is that even if you are talking to your best friend in your work place, you should keep the emails formal and professional so you can maintain this standard of work emails. Something else I learned was that if you have a lot of things to say or cover it might be best to say them in person or in a meeting instead of overwhelming the receiver with a large novel of an email. I also found the bad email phrase number 5 to be very interesting and accurate to my generation and maybe specifically my class. Collaboration is something that is heightened in theater and yet this article calls out the idea of over collaborating. If you can’t learn to make a decision on your own or take a stand with what you want then how far can you get in life and your career? It is important to reflect decisiveness even asking for advice on a project in emails.
I was surprised that I found this article as useful as I did. Usually articles like these make a few sweeping statements and call it a day, but this article was specific, not only in the phrases, but why they should not be used in email. I definitely agree that discussing other people's performances, giving personal feedback, and discussing new job prospects are definitely best left to face to face conversation as there is so much room for misinterpretation in these categories. I did find the suggestion to stop using apologetic phrases frequently and tentative language surprising as so many people I know use similar language over email. I do like how the author mentions that these types of phrases have their place, but not to use them often, and that they often do more harm than good to an email. I would be curious to ask people how they interpret such messages.
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