Adults writing like teenagers! In business emails! Annoying!

What is with the use of exclamation points in business email? Adults would NEVER use them in typed correspondence back in the old days.

I work with adult men, some of whom are PhDs, all who think they're pretty macho, and they'll write things to clients like "Thanks Steve! Look forward to seeing you next Tuesday!" or "Thanks for the opportunity to bid on this project!" The women here are just as culpable.

Jesus Mary and Joseph, what are you, 12? I've seen more restraint from 7th grade girls at a slumber party.

If they start using emoticons, I'm quitting.
:rant:

The proper form for an email is the same as for a printed letter.

I actually HAVE seen emoticons used in business emails. Yikes.

What's next?

"Client -

How R U? Whens the contract decision being made? Is it held up in committee? I h8 that!!! : - (

Hang loose,
Tom X
Senior VP-dude"

are people? who talk? as if they are constantly asking questions? You know?

dg

It's so bad that one of the clients said she could only be on the project if her (male) partner delivered the reports.

I actually had to listen to her brief this client:

"So this encapsulates? The benefits of a more proactive approach? And we also found they didn't put them in silos? So we can maximize each one?" I was pounding my head on the desk - the combination of the Valley Girl delivery of the B-school buzzwords (silos - aaarrgghh) was threatening to overload my circuits.

Compounding the sin, this Wharton-B-School bitch asked on of the young guys in our office "how OLD are you? You sound like you're still in college!" (He doesn't. Granted, he's young, but he behaves and speaks like an adult.) And she tried to get me to do most of the work on the project because "I don't usually do that myself? I usually get my undergrads to do that?"

I'd give them a pass because they fall under the sort of cameraderie-greasing schmoozing that goes on between businesses and their clients. Look at those statements again and replace the ! with a . (period). They don't sound nearly so cordial and friendly.

I do groan, however, when people's email is peppered with l33t-speak and SMS lexion. Use whole words! :P There is no space limit on an email for fuck's sake.

on paper. Back in ancient pre-history, when we used to type them.

Does the use of exclamation points instead of periods look unprofessional to me because I'm an old fogey maybe? Are you under 40?

but I'm of an age where forced, all-smiley all the time "friendship" in business relations is the norm. So that could be it.

You just have a higher tolerance for nonsense - lucky you

Maybe I'm just a crank - I order a "medium" iced coffee when I go to starbucks, so I'm thinking crank it is.

but the sanctimonious little punks will always repeat back the Starbucks language if I say anything different. Your not a crank, your just refusing to speak some corporate created jargon.

I order a "medium iced coffee with soy milk, and a small skinny latte"

"so you want a venti iced coffee with soy and a talle skinny latte, right?"

Ugh. Glad I'm not the only one.

"Tall"="small" my ass! :hi:

Why should a work environment be totally stuffy and formal? I work better with people I'm comfortable with, and if someone said that to me in an email I wouldn't think anything of it - I'd probably think they were just trying to be friendly.

It's not as if they are writing "omg did you see what the secretary wuz wearin' the other day? dayyyyammm"

for every damn email they send. They are saying their emails are much more important and everyone else. The funny thing is, the importance flag in email was originally intended to give emails a higher priority in the queue on a busy mail server. The flag was never intended to be used as a measure of one's importance relative to everyone else.

Usually it's the sort of person whose job performance is always in crisis, put out fire mode. Their "emergency" is everyone's "emergency."

is dumbing down our society?

Seriously, I'm not a skirt-high heels-and-panty-hose kind of person - I dress pretty casually - I'm wearing Sketchers today - but one of our VPs always looks like she just this minute crawled out of bed and into her husbands clothes and rolled downhill into work. Although sometimes she does comb her hair before coming in (but not always). I'm just waiting for her to show up in actual pajamas one day.

N0t every1 kn0ws whut this means! It's twitter time! ph34r my l33t skillz!

Did you ever see what I got for myself? You might enjoy it: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=105&topic_id=9035740

I get the rest.

I know I should chill, and I do try - I refer to my SO as "dude" (and he calls me "dudette") and call my boss "buckaroo" (and the more he seems upset by this, the more I do it, which is NOT good for job security).

Love the Valentine.

Did I reply wrong? I think I asked Rabrrrrrr to 'chill,' since he's always so upset with bad manners and hides behind a Rothko painting until it's over. ;)

The valentine is sweet, thank you.

D00d, kewl! ;) Gr8t, gonna set up the acc. right now! Boni just roxx0r. _|00 be pleased! 50/50, kay! Laterz, CMW!

Once you've started IM'ing your coworkers it's just one more step to emailing them as if you were IM'ing them. I actually have to edit my client-facing stuff pretty carefully because I don't want to do that with them.

That said, I think your original examples are pretty innocuous. And I have (after a certain point on a project) used emoticons here and there. Yes, in emails to clients who I know well and like. :P Hehehe.

which is actually FAR more difficult and time consuming than JUST PICKING UP THE GODDAMN PHONE AND TALKING TO ME. Because I can't really do anything else while I await his next post. And if his phone rings, so he stops typing and I go back to whatever I was working on, I have to stop a few minutes later when he re-commences.

Hey everyone, thanks for letting me vent today. To summarize, here is Patiod's October Don't List:
- Overuse of exclamation points in business correspondence
- VP in Tevas
- Barristas forcing us to use their company's marketing language
- Boss who IMs when he should call
- Colleague who talks like a Valley Girl

OK, that about covers the bases

:hi: