18th Feb 2008
Weird Abuses of Language in the Workplace
I’m going to add to this post as I encounter more language abuse. I’ve definitely received emails that use the imperative like this one described in the employment news at the SF Chronicle:
I received an e-mail that in its entirety said: “Be advised that your cubicle is now E-15,” with the signature block of the administrator — no greeting and no cheery goodbye. Now, I understand the need to move people around, and E-15 is a bigger cube with a window view so I’m not complaining about the move. Am I right to be peeved by the tone of the message?
I would first be puzzled (When should I move? Will someone help me move the bigger objects or shall I drag the computer down the hall?) and then peeved (One sentence to uproot my worklife? And what if I’m simply too busy to move right now?).
Business language seems to be evolving in the direction of “less is more,” whereas in this case, “less is simply less.” Less information, less politeness, less dignity, and less respect all around. And David Robinson is a senior lecturer at the Haas School of Business, UC Berkeley, seems to agree.
Be peeved. “Be advised” is the imperative (really a contraction of “Be thou advised”) just like “Be silent!” No one in their right mind would speak that way to a colleague in person or by phone. The correct form, of course, is, “Katie: As you know, we’re consolidating work groups and that results in some changes in cubicle assignment. As of next Monday, we’ll be moving you to E-15. I hope you enjoy your new view! Best regards, Mike Pham, Office Manager.”
The “be advised” form is just another example of how people adopt a false formal language in the workplace. There’s no need for it — it didn’t enhance the meaning of the message and inadvertently communicated that you were being bossed around.
Other language issues you’d like to note?
Even just the simple addition of the word “please” would soften this one up.
But honestly–this person is most likely in facilities. He does not need to communicate on a regular basis and as such, his emails convey the needed information and no more. Such positions rely not on people but on things. To me, the suggested rephrasing comes off as a trifle irritating and condescending, but I am admittedly one of those people who has to force herself to re-read communications for tone as I tend to be a “just the facts” sort of person myself.
Hence, my annoyance at our company trying to put Ops people in outside facing roles. It simply isn’t part of the mentality.
Oh, I don’t know, I think the author of the email may communicate to people all the time and has chosen this as the presumptive style.
But think of those emails I told you about where someone related to one client or another sends me something that simply says, “Go to this site. Download this program. Call me for help installing” and I’m like, “WHO ARE YOU?” A tad more explanation, and the word please functions in just about all situations.
That seems abrupt, but I wouldn’t put it in the category of rude. I don’t know what the protocol is, but a cheery greeting and goodbye doesn’t seem necessary to me for conveying something so simple as that.
And some people are really bad with email communication; they’re not writers. Men seem more prone to this than women, in my experience. My father, for example, RARELY sends an email with more than one line in it. He isn’t so terse in person, but for a number of reasons, email is not something he feels comfortable with, and so he says absolutely as little as possible. One factor is that he types incredibly slow (as in 15 wpm).
I do agree that “Be advised” is unnecessarily formal, but I’d rather get an email like the one above than some others - full of fluff words and grammatical errors.
But it’s not really an either/or situation, right? There’s a happy medium that includes an opening, relevant information, and a closing that leaves the reader feeling respected. To me, in a corporate environment, this reads as if the worker has no feelings, and doesn’t care if she/he immediately has to pack up all belongings and move. It’s like an eviction notice. Even though you might get to move to a nicer place, you’d still like language that is respectful and doesn’t feel like you’re being kicked out.
You’re right; it’s not an either/or. In my mind I was thinking that the person would already know that they are moving, and this was just the notification of “where to.” But that was just how it worked at the places I used to be employed at (usually the manager or someone from facilities would have talked to us about it). It does take on a different tone in my mind if that were the ONLY communication the employee ever received about the move.
It’s always hard to know in these “Dear Expert…” questions how much other information is relevant. I know that I received emails like this with literally nothing else, so I assumed there was nothing else. But, of course, if it had been couched in all sorts of decent verbal communication, it would come off much differently.
I surveyed coworkers and they pretty much agreed on the following:
1. Please would have been nice.
2. They would prefer that notifications of moves come verbally from their manager, in which case the truncated notice from facilities is perfectly acceptable. But something that is going to affect them this greatly should always be verbal as one gets pretty attached to one’s cube.
3. For mass emailings, they don’t really mind this kind of language, particularly since the person sending them out would not have time to personalize them. For a personal email, they would prefer something a little more… personalized.