Why YSK: These email tips are helpful for people who struggle with boundaries and want to communicate more assertively.
Some of these are good, some are just needlessly assertive nonsense. Especially the two where it’s actively refusing to acknowledge fault or apologize for it, which is standard PR crap. Refusing to apologize and instead saying “thanks for your patience” is what I expect to hear from my ISP when they miss their scheduled install, not from a coworker.
There’s nothing wrong with being a normal human being that is capable of admitting their own shortcomings. If never saying sorry means “being a boss” then that explains why there’s so many sociopaths as CEOs.
“Hope that make sense?” Vs “Let me know if you have any questions.”
The latter is saying “here’s the explanation, figure it out, bother me again if you can’t”. The fromer, while poorly worded, is being helpful, actively attempting to make sure the person understands before leaving them to it. It’s both a kindness and doing your due diligence.
Seriously… and oftentimes just combining both works better. “Hey sorry I’m late, I appreciate you all being patient” or “Hope that all makes sense, but please feel free to ask any questions if they come up”
I’m so happy to see a sane comment at the top here. So many of these are just stupid and border on alpha male don’t take not shit or admit fault crap.
I think it goes the other way too. For people that tend to apologize too much, even when it’s not their fault, mixing in a “thanks for your patience” is a good way to balance it out a bit.
I’m torn. I feel like admitting guilt and owning up to your failures is a virtue, but I’m not sure the rest of the world agrees with me
Neurotypical enough to read body language, neurodivergent enough to never understand why
I’m with you. Just being honest about a failure is fine. Doesn’t have to be a dramatic apology, just an acknowledgment with a bit of regret perhaps.
That makes sense. I think that’s a different issue than I was thinking. Ultimately if it’s a sincere comment I think that’s the most important thing.
“Thank you for your patience” gives me such a visceral reaction, lol
Agreed! It’s like…. You know we’re emailing other people too right? Not everyone is a delicate fucking flower that needs to be coddled. Yes there are better ways to word stuff, but typing as a medium often just leaves too much up to interpretation. A difficult conversation should be discussed on a call.
My personal ones for corporate use:
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Never use I when you can use we.
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Even if you’re the only one working on a project, never refer to it as yours. Always refer to it as ours.
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Don’t apologize, present solutions.
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Don’t say “read my fucking email again you goddamn illiterate moron”, say “As previously noted in our communications…”
The last one is particularly important if you like to eat.
So that’s where I’ve been going wrong at previous jobs. Definitely taking note.
I will also attach old emails rather than repeat myself.
“Per my last email…”
good ‘ol corporate clap back
Our company “russian anthem starts playing”
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To be honest, I find most of these passive aggressive and patronizing.
I agree, but, you’d be surprised how many people find many of these seemingly innocuous distinctions offensive (if only a little bit). For example, I was once chided by HR for saying ‘no problem’ during a seemingly friendly discussion.
Seems like a toxic work environnement to get chided for so little…
Agreed. Got my revenge though. They got fired a week after I quit working there.
If someone has a problem with “no problem,” they have a problem.
I mean apparently some people think a thumbs up in a chat is passive aggressive.
👍
I don’t know how else to explain it, but thumbsup is the boomerest emoji.
Nah, mate. 😱 is the boomerest emoji
I do NP!
Most? I can definitely see “when can I expect an update?”, that one’s terrible. “It would be best if we” sounds pretty self-assured without a modifier such as “in my opinion” (which is what the original option was doing). “Nice catch!” is also a bit too honeyed and casual as well. But I don’t see a problem with the rest of them.
Nah. By my count, 1 is context dependent, 2 are okay, the remaining 6 are kinda cunty.
I actually like nice catch, as long as it’s not an egregious error. There are often going to be mistakes in a document, even when prepared by someone completely competent. This acknowledges someone as being part of a process instead of focusing on an error.
it’s a guide to being a soulless corporate cog
Half of it is fragile CEO ego reply
Yeah seriously, there’s nothing wrong with admitting you made a mistake.
“When can I expect an update” makes you sound like a micro managing POS
Yeah, there are some good ones and some terrible ones.
Also reading the whole thing, it makes it sound like you should never apologize. I see it becoming real toxic real quick.
Yeah some of these sound straight up aggressive lol
My go to is usually like “I just wanted to touch base on [topic]” if I want an update on something without seeming like I’m pressuring them.
God I hate forced formality like this. This is the kind of shit Gen Z and millennials are rebelling against and I’m all for it. It is stupid for us to encourage people to be themselves and then to expect them to act like a completely different person at work, including the way they talk.
You may see it as forced formality, but these tips were created by a person with ADHD to help others who struggle with setting boundaries, especially with time. The creator is a Millennial comic artist. It helps me be more myself when I respect my schedule and don’t over-apologize, but I can understand that not everyone sees it the same way.
I think you can do all of the things you said without being overly formal about everything! For reference I have ADHD too. ☺️
I honestly don’t see these as being overly formal, but I worked in finance and real estate legal compliance for many years and that may have warped my perception. I think it all depends on your environment and how well the person reading this knows you (aka will they be able to recognize your intended tone?)
I don’t read formality in these either, fwiw. in fact they’re generally pretty casual.
People write work emails differently, but I write more like the “don’t” list than the “boss” list in most situations. I also rarely put much thought into it unless it’s an extremely delicate situation. The only problem I have with this post is it’s presumption that your way is the boss way and the other way is somehow inferior.
“It’d be easier to discuss in person” means “I don’t want a record of this because it’s either illegal or shows my incompetence”.
Any meeting that they want to talk about in writing should ALWAYS be recorded.
Also, carefully laying thoughts out in text for 40 minutes takes a lot less time than explaining it meaningfully to multiple people, probably more than once if it was important enough. Absolutely nothing wrong with that.
To me calls are more about efficiency, I prefer to have a call and talk through a complex issue for 15 min instead of needing 5+ back and forth emails over an afternoon to get everyone on the same page.
Couldn’t agree more.
Yes, either that or “I haven’t thought this through well enough that I can explain it in writing, so please let me fumble through an oral explanation and—in all likelihood—waste your time”.
Or, “I’m dyslectic and would prefer to talk rather than write”, which is fair enough, I think.
YSK, the person that embraces all of these, as written, is RIGHTFULLY perceived as an assholes by their peers.
Some of them are great and can even make things less awkward for the other person. The “small error” one for example. The “I have an appointment” one is necessary when talking with higher ups in big companies who completely devalue your needs. But some are assholish, yeah.
I greatly prefer some of the “wrong” ones. Not everyone needs to talk like a corporate robot.
I think it definitely depends on your relationship with the recipient. While I do think most of those are better options, I wouldn’t say they’re necessarily what you should write.
Agreed, it is not always prudent to be overly assertive.
For example, I may be working with someone else on a project that is not time sensitive, but for my own planning I like to stay up to date on progress. I absolutely would reach out to someone with a “Just checking in, how are things going with X” because, well, that’s honestly all I’m doing. Checking in.
Meanwhile, saying “When can I expect an update?” is almost like saying “I don’t think you’re going fast enough and I’m getting impatient,” which sends the wrong type of message, makes me seem like a hardass, and might impact the quality of work if the other person suddenly feels rushed.
All of these are really good examples of writing a good email, except the bottom left one.
The “wrong” example is perfectly fine, and the “correct” example is pretty rude unless you’re a project manager addressing your team. Even if you were a project manager, it’s still pretty rude.
I totally agree, bottom left one screams of project manager that scheduled too much in your sprint and they’re pressuring you to finish everything asap
Also it depends on if the person holding you up is the client or some other employee at your company.
Often it is the client the holding you up. In which case the best thing to do is send them an email about a week before the actual target date just to remind them, especially if they’ve done this before.
In a good workplace, none of these fucking matter…
Yup, I just talk the way I want to talk.
I talk with my own character, politely and everyone is happy.
I don’t understand what businesses some people are working in that you’d need to be so careful with how you talk.
I work for a global multi billion dollar company and never had issues, plus the higher ups don’t even talk like this in meetings unless it’s some official email or something.
A companies in which managers are constantly telling their employees what they didn’t do good (which is actually what they didn’t do that the manager wanted them to do). These are usually micromanagers/new managers.
This is borderline toxic management lol.
Good luck finding a good workplace in a capitalist society.
I work IT at a college, its pretty good here. Definitely not perfect, but people are pretty easy going where they don’t care about stuff like this.
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Take those tips with a grain of salt, as this sort of conventional politeness strategy is heavily dependent on culture, situation, and sometimes even individual*.
I predict that those tips would work poorly with people from cultures where negative politeness (“don’t burden the others”) is valued over positive politeness (“show appreciation towards the others”). This is fairly common in East Asia for example, but even here in Latin America I got a few people rolling their eyes at “biztalk” like “obrigado pela paciência” (thank you for the patience) over a simple apology.
In special, I can picture the centre advice rubbing a lot of people the wrong way, as it’s basically the writer lifting a burden from one’s own shoulders (struggling to word something) by creating a burden to the reader (“I expect you to be available offline for a meeting”).
*if anyone wants to dig deeper into this subject, check Penelope Brown and Stephen Levinson’s Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage. It’s a bit of a technical read for Linguistics (more specifically Pragmatics), but I got plenty laymen who love the book.
This is a fantastic comment, thank you. I think it’s fascinating that there is such a mixed reaction, and your explanation certainly helps me make sense of it.
Yup - the mixed reactions are likely due to the cultural dependency. I’m almost sure that, if we were able to map those replies in a world map, the positive reactions would all clutter into some spots of the world, while the negative ones would clutter in other places. (That would be rather cool to study.)
That would be incredible to study. I’m now going to pay attention to this with my friends from different cultures.
For me personally, receiving a ‘just wanted to check in’ feels less aggressive than ‘when can I expect an update’
Otherwise I agree with the rest
Agreed. The former sounds like “How’s it coming?” and the latter sounds like “What’s taking so long?”
One tip here is to remove “just” as it will come across as more confident. The use of “just” is often unnecessary and can come across as apologetic.
I don’t read it any differently with or without just. I’m not sure what you mean by apologetic or why that would be a bad thing.
Instead of either, I like asking if they have any further questions.
Some of those “wrong” ones would be fine for instant messages like Slack or Teams.
Totally agree. I think for me these are more about increasing confidence and assertiveness in communication rather than just better wording.
