Office emails, decoded
I was musing on the everyday passive-aggression of business emails at work the other day after a particularly pissy back-and-forth with my least favorite coworker, in which we basically told each other to fuck off in plain view of both our bosses (who were cc’d on the whole thing), but because we did it in professional language we can get away with that. So, I decided to make a list of the most common code-words and phrases and what they really mean, for anyone entering their first white-collar business environment who might want help translating or need to know how to deliver a polite, professional “fuck you”.
- “I’d just like to get some clarity on this/can you clarify for me” = what the fuck are you talking about/what the fuck did you do?
- “Let’s discuss next steps” = get off your ass and make it happen you lazy shitwad.
- “Thanks for following up with me about this” = I’m busy and I’ll get to you when I have a moment. Quit fucking riding my ass.
- “If you need it sooner than that” = I have my own work to do; do it your damn self if it’s that urgent.
- “What’s our timeline on this?” = I have no intention of doing that for you right now. How long can I put it off?
- “It’s going to be challenging, but…” = do you have any fucking idea what you’re asking me to do?
- “I see where you’re coming from” = you are so fucking wrong
- “Would you like to take the lead on this?” = this is not my problem and I refuse to clean up your mess.
- “Maybe we could schedule some time to discuss this over the phone” = stop avoiding me and answer the fucking question, asshole
- “[Someone on the CC line of the email], please feel free to weigh in!” = I don’t have the authority to tell this shithead how wrong they are. Kindly step up and do it for me.
- “It was my understanding that” = we’ve already had this conversation, please shut the fuck up
- “Please reach out to [person]” = I’m tired of hearing you whine about this, go pester someone else for awhile.
The only one of these I will never use is “Maybe we could schedule some time to discuss this over the phone”. Even if it takes a thousand messages, email whenever possible, because phone conversations don’t leave a paper trail and in a month you’re going to be sending out another email anyway demanding to know why the asshole in question hasn’t done what they said they’d do and you won’t have anything to back it up.
I’ve learned my lesson on that one.
True, but there *is* a way to make it work. I do that one as a two-parter: call and go over whatever it is, then *immediately* - literally 30 seconds after hanging up the phone - send a follow-up email “just to confirm, we discussed X, Y, and decided to do Z by N date. Did I forget anything or leave anything out?” That way you can pin them to the metaphorical wall and force them to stop avoiding answering your question by calling them and having a voice-to-voice conversation, but *also* have a paper trail to go back to. And, for bonus points, ending the email with a question like that pretty much forces them to reply and commit themselves to having confirmed whatever the discussion included and the decision was, and they can’t go back later and say “but you didn’t include ABC!” because you already gave them the opportunity to address any missing agenda items from the call in your initial email. (This is a technique I was literally explicitly taught by my supervisor, an HR manager with like 15+ yrs of experience, and I’ve seen it used to excellent effect several times. 10/10 do recommend.)
@waffleheaded
These are all beautiful.
(via cthulhu-with-a-fez)
