Thursday, February 21, 2008

E-mail ettitiqute or generation gap?

Since my co-worker and I work at different stores but our responsibilities overlap a little bit we often communicate via e-mail. She has several curious habits that I've never encountered before in a business environment.

1. She uses an excessive amount of wordy filler phrases, which don't really mean anything. Example:

"I'm sorry to bother you but if you wouldn't mind when you have the time
and it is convenient for you, would you please be so kind to send me another
deposit book. I'm running low and I only have one more left and it will
only last me another month or so. So, please, if you wouldn't mind, I'd
appreciate it."

This is the way she speaks as well, which I understand. But it amuses me that she would take the time to actually type out all the fluffy phrases. Is this more polite than, "Would you please send me another deposit book?" I don't think so. I'm still saying "please."

2. She uses my name constantly in her e-mails. So the above message turns into:

"Andrea, I'm sorry to bother you but if you wouldn't mind when you have the
time and it is convenient for you, would you please be so kind to send me
another deposit book. I'm running low, Andrea, and I only have one more
left and it will only last me another month or so. So, please Andrea, if
you wouldn't mind, I'd appreciate it."

This bothers me way more than it should. I feel it is condescending--like the way you would talk to a small child to make sure he is paying attention to you. Or maybe she thinks her e-mail might fall into the wrong hands? Maybe someone who is not Andrea might start to read it and realize, "Hey, this isn't for me! It's for someone named 'Andrea.' I'd better see if I can track her down!"

3. Without fail, every message will have a follow-up "thank you." If I respond to her request for a deposit book with, "I'll have the courier bring one to you," I will always get a "thank you" message. Multiply that by, oh, I don't know, every single e-mail we send in a week and I have 40 messages which just say "thank you."

I suppose she's never read any e-mail ettitiqute articles, all of which say, "Get to the point. Don't waste your time or the recipient's time with extra keystrokes. Don't reply to every single e-mail with a 'thank you.'" It may be a generational thing. (She is sixtysomething, which is thirtysomething years older than me.) Maybe this is a throwback to a time when people used many, many, many more words to get their point across.

I wonder if she thinks my e-mails are rude. "That Andrea... she's always so demanding and forceful. She never asks if I would mind or if it is convenient for me. Plus, I'm always so confused because I don't know if the e-mail is actually for me because she never uses my name."

I wouldn't be surprised.

3 comments:

Bertie said...

Seriously- i have loved every single post so far! I miss living near ya'll!!!

Shauna said...

Maybe she's got hundreds of form-letter type emails. And when she sends you one of them, your name is taken from the To: line and automatically inserted into the text so as to make it appear that it is a personal email to you.

I think you should change your name to Fluffy McBumcheeks in your company's email directory just to make sure.

Shauna said...

Oh... also, I have an older co-worker that replies "thanks" to every email as well. Except the REALLY funny part is that her automatic signature already says "Thanks, [insert name]" so when she sends the thank you emails back, it looks a little something like this:

Thanks!

Thanks,
[insert name]