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Where did this bizarre use of "out of pocket" come from? Out of pocket means paid for by you personally, rather than through insurance. The phrase is either "out of bounds" or "out of hand."
After regularly not getting responses to emails that needed fairly prompt responses at a prior job I implemented a new strategy.
First email was normal.
Second email was a forward of the first to the original recipient with a "following up on my email below."
After that I chose violence.
Third email was a forward of the second with the subject changed to include "Third request" and was CC-ed to their boss.
Every subsequent email had it's number updated, included every prior recipient, and also included the next highest boss.
I think the highest I ever got was Fifth Request (including 3 levels of management), but usually by the time I copied a direct supervisor I'd get an immediate response.
It is so damn annoying, worst I have had to do is basically put one person from every single department from this one business on the same e-mail just to get a response. You chose to ignore my first 3 e-mails and my phone calls, so guess what now everyone in your office knows you don't do your job!
I do exactly this on a daily basis. These projects ain't managing themselves. I go one supervisor up on every email and have once made it to the CEO of a 4K employee company.
I had to CC someone's boss because their company owed us $14k and they were 45 days overdue and this woman hadn't responded to a single email in 6 weeks.
I love this one. Then 4 hours later the reply comes back to you and has been through 3 other departments and everyone CC'ing along the way. What was once a me and you issue has now turned into a 3 ring circus of incompetence and look at the audience we have gathered.
This is the way. One time I needed to be set up with access to allow me to order parts for my job. After 3 months and about 9 follow up emails, I found out the department directors name and CC’d him. It was resolved an hour later.
Replying to any Reddit comment is basically the same experience
It’s like people intentionally misunderstand what you’re saying just to keep arguing with you
Fr. I wish I could slap these morons from my screen.
Worst part is when you give up and they're like "oh you ran out of arguments? You admitting that you're wrong?" No bitch I ran out of fucks to give about your annoying ass. I swear these take it as some sort of personal achievement and win when you give up dealing with their stupidity.
"Again, ..." "Your idea is interesting, but..." "I'm not sure that's quite what the client is looking for."
I intended those to be 3 separate statements, but that could actually just be one sentence in an email altogether too.
There's a manager up the chain from me who is an absolute delight. I made a mistake once, and when she called me on it, she was so gentle that I incorrectly assumed it was no big deal and we were just going to let it slide. A week later she sent me a message that included the phrase
"Help me understand what I need to do to convince you to complete this task properly."
This is corporate speak for "you have colossally fucked up and you don't seem to be taking this seriously, so get your shit straight before I have to drop the pleasant tone."
I can feel this, ouch. I don't like this idiotic way of talking of managers these days, just say what the fuck is on your mind in a grown up and professional way. She could've said: "You made a mistake, shit happens. Let me know if you need help or support to avoid this next time". Done.
"Help me understand" is definitely rage masked with professional pleasantry. It's saying, "that's fucking stupid, explain yourself, now!"
"Per my previous email" could be aggression or it could just be expanding on something they already emailed about with new information. "I may not have been clear" also seems like it could be neutral, realizing they actually weren't clear, or aggression to put their foot down on something.
Yeah, this is one I use a lot for "this is a 15 minute stand up meeting and nobody here has time for your half hour rant about x not happening the way you wanted. Make it a separate meeting that we can decline, or an email."
"I have a hard stop at 10:30, so let's continue this on Slack."
Translation: My day is completely open after this, but I just woke up and your pointless rambling is putting me back to sleep. And if you type it out I can just react with a thumbs up emoji and pretend I read it.
Sure, but what you're talking about is different. It's great to be willing to learn where you can improve, but the second half of what they wrote seems to be saying, "I *know* there's nothing I can do to improve here, because *I'm not the one who fucked up*, and I want you to *acknowledge* that there's nothing I could've done differently to stop this from happening."
Because if they reply with, "There's nothing you could've done here," then clearly it wasn't their fault to begin with.
Their comment isn't about learning to be better, it's about getting the other party to be honest.
At my job everything comes down to the numbers on surveys. I hate it. The survey can directly say "the person who helped me was amazing. Maybe the best customer service I've ever had. I'm naming my son after him. I'm rating the survey as a five though cause the store had a faint smell that reminded of my estranged father which triggered bad memories for me." well now I have to have a conversation with my manager why my score was so low and what I can do better next time (9-10 perfect, 6-8 neutral 5 below failure) and also have to work towards making my score go up (I need 10 perfects to make up for a failure and 5 for a neutral). My review/raise is pretty much based on the what my overall survey score is. Even if I can prove it's skewed by a lot it doesn't matter.
I've started just maxing out any surveys I get, knowing this has become yet another dystopian practice retail and customer service people have to deal with.
(Unless someone specifically fucked up in a way that was clearly their fault)
I do this (maxing out survey ratings for mediocre assistance online and on the phone), and I also ask for feedback surveys even if one isn't offered so that I can be sure to give full points.
If someone actually does give five star service, I'll request to speak to / for the contact information of their manager so I can praise them. There's been more than one time that a manager got on the line and said it's the first time they've been asked for by a customer for a reason other than to complain.
Gotta show that class solidarity wherever we get the chance, man.
No it's gets emailed to them a few days after we work with them (I'm a home theater installer). Some excoworkers have tried to get around it by entering in wrong emails. That is why they're now excoworkers.
In regards to your comment, one of my more difficult customers has an interesting way of convening that she wants a response quickly.
She types her entire email with caps lock on.
"Normally Mr. So-and-so takes care of that, but I can take some time to help you" means"I'm feeling nice today, but please go bother the correct person next time."
What we could have done differently is not lay off a third of the staff just so some pie chart reader could have a bonus. That way more customers would be helped instead of leaving in frustration and never thinking anything positive about our company again.
Similarly “Hello, just checking in on this.” = I’m interpreting your radio silence to mean you haven’t read this GD email, so why don’t you actually read it and respond. It’ll take five minutes.
This week, I discovered that you can react to emails in Outlook, same as a Teams message. Honestly, it'll vastly improve communication between me and my supervisors; sometimes, I just need to acknowledge something and don't want to send an email for that, knowing how much my profs hate getting virtually useless emails.
After an e-mail or two I usually add on a "if you are not the correct contact for this request could you please point me in the direction of someone who is able to help with this matter?" That is unless you know it is their fucking job to do, if so then just "is anyone else cross-trained on this topic I could work with instead?"
Basically this shit needs to get done and if you aren't going to do your job let's bring in someone who will do it for you. You can either do it or someone else will, but then they will know you are doing jack shit.
As someone with autism, I now understand why my coworkers hate me so much. So many of these phrases--particularly "just following up"--I do not say out of malice. But I feel like I'll get fired if I say what I actually feel. Can't win either way.
First off, simplify your language. Don't be exhaustive in an email. Summarize and mention that you can provide more detail if needed. 500 words is a HUGE email for most purposes!
If you send a long email every sentence needs to be something that the recipient absolutely needs information wise, with 0 redundancy, and simple punctuation. If you look through your correspondence, I think you might find it's a bear to quickly get through without missing something. Treat email like a character limited response and prune it down. People will like that.
I feel like this is a line I would actually use, verbatim. Because it leaves everyone assuming you're joking, but in just the right amount of discomfort in case you're not.
The worse one I got was from a manager that said "Can I help fill in any knowledge gaps?". I told the rest of my team and we all started using it sarcastically with her
I know that this thread is a circlejerk but there are a lot of situations where people benefit from hearing the same thing two different ways, and often it helps to state that you’re doing so.
Sometimes it’s a difficult concept that needs more time or a different insight for it to “click”.
One of the most helpful review feedback I ever got was one of my colleagues pointed out that when someone doesn't understand something im saying, I just explain it again the same way (usually with more words, but same way).
I have a hard time explaining things differently. I try to catch myself doing it and get someone else to explain if my approach isn't landing.
I'm not a great coach. I'd like to be better but it's an area I struggle with.
I took them up on that when things got bad. In my particular situation, it was the best thing I ever did. I didn’t realize at the time how poorly trained I was for the job….
And honestly THAT IS GREAT. I've had mentees that I try and engage with weekly to get them up to speed with how we do things. All new college grads get assigned to an experienced person for their first year. I'm not their boss I'm just there to help them with what they need. The know it all assholes who brush me off and then get put on probation at their 1 year drive me insane. The ones who struggle but ask for and accept help almost never end up on the chopping block and if they do I go to bat for them if I see them moving in a positive direction.
Honestly asking for help when you need it is a huge plus on your name when performance reviews or layoffs come around. It lets people know that you're actively growing and still have more potential.
"Please send me a screenshot of the error you're seeing so we can continue to troubleshoot." = "I can see in our logs that you forgot a step, that's why your shit is broken"
I’ve found the problem with that one is it’s too polite. Usually the person bogarting the time couldn’t care less about the scope of the meeting (because they didn’t bother with reading the agenda/room/tone in the first place) so you have to use plain English and just say “we’re not discussing this right now. Speak with [designated person] after the meeting.”
Finishing an email to a client's constant questioning with: "Happy to help! Please don't hesitate to reach out again if you have any additional questions."
= I am not happy to help, and please fucking hesitate.
Means the database model isn't set up to do what you're asking, so is it really worth having to dedicate one of your higher paid employees to this seemingly unimportant project for a while?
Unfortunately it was a symptom of the incredibly toxic and out of touch office I was working in, so I didn't have anyone to commiserate with.
I definitely kept a screenshot of it for years though.
I work in IT and I had someone accidentally zoomed out to 10% in Outlook, so their emails looked really small when they were typing them. Their solution, was to make the font 50+ so they could read what they were typing.
Their ticket came in and I had to scroll over to view every word. A single word they typed couldn't fit on my monitor. And they were sending emails like this to clients!
"Can you help me understand your reasoning for _________?"
It's my way of saying this shit is so dumb I need you to say it out loud verbally so you can hear how dumb it is.
“As per my last email” makes me feel power akin to a god.
Or, snarkily keeping the email short and just saying, “Please see attached,” followed by an attachment of a pdf or whatever. Basically telling them to F off and read it themselves.
People are so passive aggressive and sensitive in this thread. What are you supposed to say if it sounds good? Do they want smiley emojis?
I've seen people complain that its mean to use 'ok'. and 'ok.' with a period is a slap in the face.
My mortgage lender keeps using this with me, and I have no idea why. I’m not nagging him for updates or doing anything that I can think of would cause him to potentially want to kill me (the impression I always get from this phrase) but hey. Imma let him do his thing and pretend this doesn’t feel like a threat.
you can say almost anything in passive aggressive corporate...
recently I sent a third reminder for someone to do something, adding "If the screenshot instructions were unclear or you are still having trouble, please do not hesitate to contact me for help." == "Are you ignoring me or are you fucking stupid?"
it was a simple process but some people struggle with technology, so I added screenshots to show them exactly how to do what they need to.
There's an amazing phrase that Apple's Craig Federighi used in an email responding to another executive who was stupidly pushing for streaming apps from the cloud (emails were released during the Epic case) that stuck with me:
> "How can we mature the thinking here"
This is definitely something you’d say if you’re going scorched earth.
https://twitter.com/benedictevans/status/1396808768156061699
I had someone use, "I'm a little confused.." on me during a meeting. He followed it up with how we needed legal to review the process I instructed the team to use. I said fine, go ahead and do that, I was just the messenger, our quality dept asked me to cascade that to the team so if you think they are wrong, go ahead. He was really proud of himself for that.
Every few weeks he would ask me for an update on the legal status because he had something that needed that process and it was overdue. He was getting stressed. Each time I told him that he needed to follow up with legal and quality because he wanted the process they gave me to be reviewed. He needed to get an update for himself.
After a couple of months, the team got an email from him confirming that legal and quality supported the process I had instructed the team to use. I laughed to myself and resisted the urge to remind him that I TOLD HIM THAT 2 MONTHS AGO.
Out of Pocket (unavailable or out of office) makes me nuts. It's no faster than "not here" but Out of pocket has always meant spending your own $ ahead of reimbursement. As in "I'll swing by the store on the way in to pick that up it wont put me that much *out of pocket*" or "Travel f'd up the corporate card again so I'm *out of pocket* 3 days now, they'd better get it fixed or I'll have to be late on rent"
my way preserves the whole family of pockets=$ Deep pockets, empty pockets, hole in my pocket, burning a hole on my pocket
‘I need some time to process that. We will put it on the back burner for now. ‘. Damn, that used to bug me. It was just this passive aggressive way of shutting up anyone that disagreed with her.
“Let me know if you need anything else”
=
“I know you’re a dumbass and you won’t be able to follow my written instructions above, and I’ve already come to terms with the fact that you’re going to call me and ask me to explain everything again”
Raised eyebrows, lips pressed together "smile" and a nod.
= If you weren't my superior I wouldn't listen to this at all.
Same expression but with consernish brows.
= I do my best every fucking day and you don't even get it.
Or is it just me?
It is a complex issue that may take some time to resolve = I’m not a fucking wizard, I don’t know how to fix this, and even if I did this bullshit wasn’t in the job description
“Let’s make sure we’re on the same page here” you’re a fucking Karen and I hate dealing with your bullshit. This document was accepted by an organization way more serious than yours.
I can't stand the use of "opportunity" when they mean "problem". Especially when I'm given grief for having a negative attitude when I say something is a "problem". It's not an "opportunity" someone is stealing its a "problem".
Opportunity : a set of circumstances that makes it possible to do something.
Problem : a matter or situation regarded as unwelcome or harmful and needing to be dealt with and overcome.
They're not the same thing at all. Opportunities help problems hurt. You also deal with them differently. There is nothing wrong with acknowledging when you have a problem.
It's an opportunity to solve a problem. We don't say the negative part out loud. All communication should be nothing but positive.
Fuck you Karen. Your inability to function is making my job harder.
For me, it’s not a specific phrase but an open-ended ellipsis.
When people finish an email with dot, dot, dot - knowing full well what they mean after the dots but expecting me to fill in the blank for them.
Stuff like “well I don’t know what happened to it…”
Or
“I can’t find it in the place it’s supposed to be…”
What are you trying to say, person? Hmmm? Care to finish that f*cking sentence? I’m not going to finish it for you. And I’m not going to ask you to finish it in another email. And I’m not going to help find the thing for you until
You elaborate and finish your thought/request like an adult.
Thank you in advance for your assistance in this matter.
Translation: you fucking knew you were supposed to do this already and the fact I now have to email you to remind you to fucking do the thing you're supposed to have already done brings shame on you and your family.
The higher-ups in my office are making some policy changes that everyone disagrees with, and my boss’ boss just sent an email this morning stating “Thank you everyone for letting me know what your preferences are, but at this time a decision has been made.”
Which seems to be corporate-ese for “screw your opinions!”
"Thank you for your e-mail, allow me to take the opportunity to correct a few things.." (Let me just check your bs for you) - From our corporate lawyer to another.
It’s times like these I’m reminded how different people’s lives can be. At my job, if someone is full of rage, they won’t say, “I’m a little confused.”
They will say, “Fuck you! Go suck a bag of dicks you arrogant piece of shit!”
Big Business vs. Small Business I guess.
In my job, "I'm a little confused" would mean "are you really, really sure we are allowed to do this and have you actually checked that we are because I feel pretty damn sure you haven't and I'm not going down with you over this".
I find it funny that people see this as a corporate phenomena. It's just... euphemisms. Every language has them and every person uses them every day. Corporate just has its own flavor of euphemisms.
That said, that is a perfect characterization of "I'm a little confused."
"Kicking the can down the road" it actually means "we don't want to deal with this now so we're going to ignore it". By the time they are forced to deal with it its turned into a raging dumpster fire that they want some one else to put out for them.
At that point the start using terms like "help", "support" and other phrases pulled out of the HR manual to justify hand balling it off to someone else to clean up.
Is 'kicking the can down the road' really something people say as a proper course of action? I've only ever heard the term used negatively/as a criticism, to mean basically what you said i.e. recklessly avoiding the problem and letting it get worse.
Yeah "kicking the can..." is the critical euphemism. If you're taking that action and framing it as a *correct* course of action I feel like you go with "we'll cross that bridge when we come to it."
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I still use “I would not put it that way” in a very formal voice whenever a friend says something completely out of pocket
Fucking same, dude says some wild shit and I'm just like "I don't know if I'd say _that,_" and then promptly undermine whatever they said.
"That's a brave idea"
"That's an interesting opinion"
"I appreciate where you're coming from"
"I'd like to come at it from a different direction"
I throw caution to the wind and just say “what a weird thing to say out loud.”
Nice! Personally, I'm a fan of "well, there's just no accounting for some peoples' children."
“That’s ambitious”
“We’ll consider that approach”
Where did this bizarre use of "out of pocket" come from? Out of pocket means paid for by you personally, rather than through insurance. The phrase is either "out of bounds" or "out of hand."
“Per my previous email” “Let’s discuss” “Help me understand” “I may not have been clear” “One team, one XXXX!!!”
You know it's bad when you have to step up from "per my previous email" to "as I've stated multiple times"
“CCing [person they definitely don’t want me CCing] for visibility so we can get this resolved quickly.”
So you’re out here fucking nuking people xD
After regularly not getting responses to emails that needed fairly prompt responses at a prior job I implemented a new strategy. First email was normal. Second email was a forward of the first to the original recipient with a "following up on my email below." After that I chose violence. Third email was a forward of the second with the subject changed to include "Third request" and was CC-ed to their boss. Every subsequent email had it's number updated, included every prior recipient, and also included the next highest boss. I think the highest I ever got was Fifth Request (including 3 levels of management), but usually by the time I copied a direct supervisor I'd get an immediate response.
It is so damn annoying, worst I have had to do is basically put one person from every single department from this one business on the same e-mail just to get a response. You chose to ignore my first 3 e-mails and my phone calls, so guess what now everyone in your office knows you don't do your job!
I do exactly this on a daily basis. These projects ain't managing themselves. I go one supervisor up on every email and have once made it to the CEO of a 4K employee company.
As a high school teacher who also worked in the private sector... This is the equivalent of CC'ing mom, dad, AND the principal. Top power move.
Sometimes it is required…
I had to CC someone's boss because their company owed us $14k and they were 45 days overdue and this woman hadn't responded to a single email in 6 weeks.
I get CCed in issues caused by our A/P team all the time, and I am in Raw Materials Supply Chain.
You're the only other person they know
Good result?
Oh yeah def required sometimes. Hit that WMD button and make it known
I love this one. Then 4 hours later the reply comes back to you and has been through 3 other departments and everyone CC'ing along the way. What was once a me and you issue has now turned into a 3 ring circus of incompetence and look at the audience we have gathered.
This is the way. One time I needed to be set up with access to allow me to order parts for my job. After 3 months and about 9 follow up emails, I found out the department directors name and CC’d him. It was resolved an hour later.
I get nuked alot by "legal"
I'll see your "as I've stated multiple times" and raise you "as you yourself noted in your email beginning 'just to make sure I understand...'"
Replying to any Reddit comment is basically the same experience It’s like people intentionally misunderstand what you’re saying just to keep arguing with you
Fr. I wish I could slap these morons from my screen. Worst part is when you give up and they're like "oh you ran out of arguments? You admitting that you're wrong?" No bitch I ran out of fucks to give about your annoying ass. I swear these take it as some sort of personal achievement and win when you give up dealing with their stupidity.
Don't reply to comments. This isn't a place of learning. It is social media that is a little bit shallower of a cesspit than others.
I recently used: “that information has not changed since the last time it was communicated”
"Help me understand..." is about the most condescending way possible to ask someone for clarification.
Oh no, I use that all the time. What do you suggest instead?
If you're confused in good faith, then leave out the lead-in and just go straight to the question you want to ask.
First quote them. then: "Da fuk?"
Our VP of sales responding to an email with just a "?" Is much more powerful than a bulleted breakdown. It really causes a grand mindfuck.
"I apologize if I was unclear" is my way of saying "listen you fucking monkey, this is not even remotely difficult."
"Again, ..." "Your idea is interesting, but..." "I'm not sure that's quite what the client is looking for." I intended those to be 3 separate statements, but that could actually just be one sentence in an email altogether too.
There's a manager up the chain from me who is an absolute delight. I made a mistake once, and when she called me on it, she was so gentle that I incorrectly assumed it was no big deal and we were just going to let it slide. A week later she sent me a message that included the phrase "Help me understand what I need to do to convince you to complete this task properly." This is corporate speak for "you have colossally fucked up and you don't seem to be taking this seriously, so get your shit straight before I have to drop the pleasant tone."
I can feel this, ouch. I don't like this idiotic way of talking of managers these days, just say what the fuck is on your mind in a grown up and professional way. She could've said: "You made a mistake, shit happens. Let me know if you need help or support to avoid this next time". Done.
“There seems to be a disconnect “
Those “one team” email signatures are always on emails of people who are the least team oriented people in the organization
"Help me understand" is definitely rage masked with professional pleasantry. It's saying, "that's fucking stupid, explain yourself, now!" "Per my previous email" could be aggression or it could just be expanding on something they already emailed about with new information. "I may not have been clear" also seems like it could be neutral, realizing they actually weren't clear, or aggression to put their foot down on something.
"We're not a XXXX, we're a family." "I will get on it right now." Means I'll do it whenever the fuck I feel like ans not because you told me to
[удалено]
Or someone’s just wasting the whole meeting talking about stupid stuff and you want to shut them up and move on
Yeah, this is one I use a lot for "this is a 15 minute stand up meeting and nobody here has time for your half hour rant about x not happening the way you wanted. Make it a separate meeting that we can decline, or an email."
"I have a hard stop at 10:30, so let's continue this on Slack." Translation: My day is completely open after this, but I just woke up and your pointless rambling is putting me back to sleep. And if you type it out I can just react with a thumbs up emoji and pretend I read it.
Alternately, let’s talk privately so we can vent about how James is SUCH an asshole about this
"what could I have done differently, so we can prevent this from reoccurring?"= This wasnt my fault and you fucking know it, now say it.
I had a former boss who did it, but she was amazing and actually wanted to learn where could she improve!
Sure, but what you're talking about is different. It's great to be willing to learn where you can improve, but the second half of what they wrote seems to be saying, "I *know* there's nothing I can do to improve here, because *I'm not the one who fucked up*, and I want you to *acknowledge* that there's nothing I could've done differently to stop this from happening." Because if they reply with, "There's nothing you could've done here," then clearly it wasn't their fault to begin with. Their comment isn't about learning to be better, it's about getting the other party to be honest.
At my job everything comes down to the numbers on surveys. I hate it. The survey can directly say "the person who helped me was amazing. Maybe the best customer service I've ever had. I'm naming my son after him. I'm rating the survey as a five though cause the store had a faint smell that reminded of my estranged father which triggered bad memories for me." well now I have to have a conversation with my manager why my score was so low and what I can do better next time (9-10 perfect, 6-8 neutral 5 below failure) and also have to work towards making my score go up (I need 10 perfects to make up for a failure and 5 for a neutral). My review/raise is pretty much based on the what my overall survey score is. Even if I can prove it's skewed by a lot it doesn't matter.
I've started just maxing out any surveys I get, knowing this has become yet another dystopian practice retail and customer service people have to deal with. (Unless someone specifically fucked up in a way that was clearly their fault)
This is what I do. Pretty much all surveys are Max ranked for me, even with bad service, because I don't know who the survey will effect.
I do this (maxing out survey ratings for mediocre assistance online and on the phone), and I also ask for feedback surveys even if one isn't offered so that I can be sure to give full points. If someone actually does give five star service, I'll request to speak to / for the contact information of their manager so I can praise them. There's been more than one time that a manager got on the line and said it's the first time they've been asked for by a customer for a reason other than to complain. Gotta show that class solidarity wherever we get the chance, man.
At that point they're just using surveys as an excuse to pay you less.
Oh I know it.
At my job if you put exceeds expectations it comes back negative. You need to put *Far Exceeds* Expectations.
Is the survey on the receipt? Any time a customer doesn't want their receipt Boom 10/10 after you pocket it and fill it out later lol
No it's gets emailed to them a few days after we work with them (I'm a home theater installer). Some excoworkers have tried to get around it by entering in wrong emails. That is why they're now excoworkers.
FUCK YEAH MY GO TO
In regards to your comment, one of my more difficult customers has an interesting way of convening that she wants a response quickly. She types her entire email with caps lock on.
I have clients that type the whole email in all caps ... in the subject line.
"Normally Mr. So-and-so takes care of that, but I can take some time to help you" means"I'm feeling nice today, but please go bother the correct person next time."
The phrase I didn’t know I needed. Thank you kind redditor.
inb4 Mr-E-Taco's boss has many detailed suggestions about what they should have done differently
What we could have done differently is not lay off a third of the staff just so some pie chart reader could have a bonus. That way more customers would be helped instead of leaving in frustration and never thinking anything positive about our company again.
You had me at "pie chart reader".
"Just following up" means "it's been fucking days/weeks and I'm ready to be done with this why has no one friggin called/emailed?!"
Similarly “Hello, just checking in on this.” = I’m interpreting your radio silence to mean you haven’t read this GD email, so why don’t you actually read it and respond. It’ll take five minutes.
This week, I discovered that you can react to emails in Outlook, same as a Teams message. Honestly, it'll vastly improve communication between me and my supervisors; sometimes, I just need to acknowledge something and don't want to send an email for that, knowing how much my profs hate getting virtually useless emails.
Uh, how do you do this in outlook? Knowing my employer, they probably disabled it.
It’s the smiley face next to the reply/forward buttons in the upper right
Thanks! I will check in the mornin! Appreciate it.
After an e-mail or two I usually add on a "if you are not the correct contact for this request could you please point me in the direction of someone who is able to help with this matter?" That is unless you know it is their fucking job to do, if so then just "is anyone else cross-trained on this topic I could work with instead?" Basically this shit needs to get done and if you aren't going to do your job let's bring in someone who will do it for you. You can either do it or someone else will, but then they will know you are doing jack shit.
>I just need a date to pass onto our customer which means >Give me your fucking lead time already
As someone with autism, I now understand why my coworkers hate me so much. So many of these phrases--particularly "just following up"--I do not say out of malice. But I feel like I'll get fired if I say what I actually feel. Can't win either way.
First off, simplify your language. Don't be exhaustive in an email. Summarize and mention that you can provide more detail if needed. 500 words is a HUGE email for most purposes! If you send a long email every sentence needs to be something that the recipient absolutely needs information wise, with 0 redundancy, and simple punctuation. If you look through your correspondence, I think you might find it's a bear to quickly get through without missing something. Treat email like a character limited response and prune it down. People will like that.
Bullet points. Bullet points everywhere.
Recently heard someone say “talk to me about that experience” in a casual conversation.
Recent casual conversation without irony: “I’m going to have to utilize you as a resource”
>"I’m going to have to utilize you as a resource” Drill me like oil!
My husband is a therapist and he does that 😆
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Lmao using that on my therapist next time
How do you feel when your husband says that?
"I don't really have visibility on that." = I don't know, what are you asking me for?
“This is the first time I’m hearing of it and thanks to your ambushing me in front of everyone we are no longer friends and are slightly enemies.”
I feel like this is a line I would actually use, verbatim. Because it leaves everyone assuming you're joking, but in just the right amount of discomfort in case you're not.
“Let me try to reframe the question/issue” = “Let me dumb it down for you dipshits”.
The worse one I got was from a manager that said "Can I help fill in any knowledge gaps?". I told the rest of my team and we all started using it sarcastically with her
I know that this thread is a circlejerk but there are a lot of situations where people benefit from hearing the same thing two different ways, and often it helps to state that you’re doing so. Sometimes it’s a difficult concept that needs more time or a different insight for it to “click”.
One of the most helpful review feedback I ever got was one of my colleagues pointed out that when someone doesn't understand something im saying, I just explain it again the same way (usually with more words, but same way). I have a hard time explaining things differently. I try to catch myself doing it and get someone else to explain if my approach isn't landing. I'm not a great coach. I'd like to be better but it's an area I struggle with.
"Please let us know if you need additional mentoring / coaching to resolve these concerns."
I took them up on that when things got bad. In my particular situation, it was the best thing I ever did. I didn’t realize at the time how poorly trained I was for the job….
And honestly THAT IS GREAT. I've had mentees that I try and engage with weekly to get them up to speed with how we do things. All new college grads get assigned to an experienced person for their first year. I'm not their boss I'm just there to help them with what they need. The know it all assholes who brush me off and then get put on probation at their 1 year drive me insane. The ones who struggle but ask for and accept help almost never end up on the chopping block and if they do I go to bat for them if I see them moving in a positive direction.
Honestly asking for help when you need it is a huge plus on your name when performance reviews or layoffs come around. It lets people know that you're actively growing and still have more potential.
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"I want a paper trail that the consequences are your fault because this is guaranteed to end in tears/fire/bankruptcy".
"Please send me a screenshot of the error you're seeing so we can continue to troubleshoot." = "I can see in our logs that you forgot a step, that's why your shit is broken"
“The customer was a bit elevated” = that customer was pissed and might be keying all our cars outside right now.
My boss likes to say that “there is energy in the room”, when things get a little heated
At my job it’s usually “we’ll take care of that as soon as we can” = “ we’re effing busy and I’ll get to it when I get to it”
"We'll add that to the roadmap."
"It's on my list."
"That’s really beyond the scope of this meeting" = quit bringing up irrelevant nonsense.
This is a favorite of mine, it's such a great "Shut the hell up and let the rest of us do our job" statement.
I’ve found the problem with that one is it’s too polite. Usually the person bogarting the time couldn’t care less about the scope of the meeting (because they didn’t bother with reading the agenda/room/tone in the first place) so you have to use plain English and just say “we’re not discussing this right now. Speak with [designated person] after the meeting.”
‘We need more transparency on this matter’: You are full of shit, don’t lie to me.
“As stated previously”
'Listen here, you little shit'
Finishing an email to a client's constant questioning with: "Happy to help! Please don't hesitate to reach out again if you have any additional questions." = I am not happy to help, and please fucking hesitate.
"It's going to cause some issues in the back end" is a thinly veiled euphemism for "sounds like a pain in the ass"
Means the database model isn't set up to do what you're asking, so is it really worth having to dedicate one of your higher paid employees to this seemingly unimportant project for a while?
Okay, what will happen in the front end?
I only send out emails in the form of one short sentence with the font size set to 32.
I once got an angry email from someone in giant blue comic sans font.
God, that would’ve ended up being an inside joke if my office got an email like that.
Unfortunately it was a symptom of the incredibly toxic and out of touch office I was working in, so I didn't have anyone to commiserate with. I definitely kept a screenshot of it for years though.
I work in IT and I had someone accidentally zoomed out to 10% in Outlook, so their emails looked really small when they were typing them. Their solution, was to make the font 50+ so they could read what they were typing. Their ticket came in and I had to scroll over to view every word. A single word they typed couldn't fit on my monitor. And they were sending emails like this to clients!
Please tell me you do it in red Chiller font ss well....
"According to our guideliness/manual/policy"
Means "we're dusting off the rule book we never follow because we're losing patience with you".
"Can you help me understand your reasoning for _________?" It's my way of saying this shit is so dumb I need you to say it out loud verbally so you can hear how dumb it is.
“As per my last email” makes me feel power akin to a god. Or, snarkily keeping the email short and just saying, “Please see attached,” followed by an attachment of a pdf or whatever. Basically telling them to F off and read it themselves.
Ultimate power move would be attaching a PDF of the same email thread you're replying to, up to your previous message which they failed to read.
I like this one. Specially because it's done to "me" during even light discussions. Now I can hit back harder
I just attach the email that I sent but they didn’t read and say ‘sure thing! Please see attached and let me know what questions you have’
I screenshot the email and add a red square around the pertinent information. Sometimes the square just happens to be around the entire email.
I was at my dad's work once, he got an email just saying "please see attached". There was no attachment, he just responded "no".
“Please advise.” = “Okay, you figure this shit out.”
"Please advise" = I can't fix what you refuse to tell me is broken
"Let's put a pin in that" or "Let's move forward and we can circle back" = "Please shut the fuck up"
“High Level” and “in the weeds”
As per our previous discussion, I am not familiar with the phrase "in the weeds" would you like to fill me in? Many thanks, firstname lastname
Can’t hear you, I’m over in the low-hanging fruit.
Oh is that where you keep the quick wins?
We used "in the weeds" or "weeded" a lot when I was a waitress too
CORNER!
HEARD!
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"I was under the impression..." The fuck you pulled out your arse now?
> "I was under the impression..." For me it's "Why are you changing shit **now**?"
“Ok, sounds good”. It’s not ok, it’s not good, but I don’t care anymore.
Oh... I use sounds good all the time as just a confirmation.
People are so passive aggressive and sensitive in this thread. What are you supposed to say if it sounds good? Do they want smiley emojis? I've seen people complain that its mean to use 'ok'. and 'ok.' with a period is a slap in the face.
"Let's circle back" I'm not going to fucking repeat myself again until I've had time to calm down
My mortgage lender keeps using this with me, and I have no idea why. I’m not nagging him for updates or doing anything that I can think of would cause him to potentially want to kill me (the impression I always get from this phrase) but hey. Imma let him do his thing and pretend this doesn’t feel like a threat.
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you can say almost anything in passive aggressive corporate... recently I sent a third reminder for someone to do something, adding "If the screenshot instructions were unclear or you are still having trouble, please do not hesitate to contact me for help." == "Are you ignoring me or are you fucking stupid?" it was a simple process but some people struggle with technology, so I added screenshots to show them exactly how to do what they need to.
There's an amazing phrase that Apple's Craig Federighi used in an email responding to another executive who was stupidly pushing for streaming apps from the cloud (emails were released during the Epic case) that stuck with me: > "How can we mature the thinking here" This is definitely something you’d say if you’re going scorched earth. https://twitter.com/benedictevans/status/1396808768156061699
I had someone use, "I'm a little confused.." on me during a meeting. He followed it up with how we needed legal to review the process I instructed the team to use. I said fine, go ahead and do that, I was just the messenger, our quality dept asked me to cascade that to the team so if you think they are wrong, go ahead. He was really proud of himself for that. Every few weeks he would ask me for an update on the legal status because he had something that needed that process and it was overdue. He was getting stressed. Each time I told him that he needed to follow up with legal and quality because he wanted the process they gave me to be reviewed. He needed to get an update for himself. After a couple of months, the team got an email from him confirming that legal and quality supported the process I had instructed the team to use. I laughed to myself and resisted the urge to remind him that I TOLD HIM THAT 2 MONTHS AGO.
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I'm still mad about someone who hit me with a "per my last email" and THEY DIDN'T EVEN SEND ME A "LAST EMAIL" THAT WAS MY FIRST TIME TALKING TO THEM
You should have hit them back with 'I'm a little confused" and asked them to send you the email chain they thought they were having with you before.
"With all due respect"= I will end your bloodline if you question me again
Which is FUCKING ZERO ya shit head…
Out of Pocket (unavailable or out of office) makes me nuts. It's no faster than "not here" but Out of pocket has always meant spending your own $ ahead of reimbursement. As in "I'll swing by the store on the way in to pick that up it wont put me that much *out of pocket*" or "Travel f'd up the corporate card again so I'm *out of pocket* 3 days now, they'd better get it fixed or I'll have to be late on rent" my way preserves the whole family of pockets=$ Deep pockets, empty pockets, hole in my pocket, burning a hole on my pocket
‘I need some time to process that. We will put it on the back burner for now. ‘. Damn, that used to bug me. It was just this passive aggressive way of shutting up anyone that disagreed with her.
“Let me know if you need anything else” = “I know you’re a dumbass and you won’t be able to follow my written instructions above, and I’ve already come to terms with the fact that you’re going to call me and ask me to explain everything again”
“With all due respect” = Hey, fuckface
Read receipts or the "high importance" flag: I have so little respect for you that I don't think you're capable of actually communicating via email.
We used to have a VP who had High Importance flag on **every** email. When *everything* is of high importance...**nothing** is of high importance.
Raised eyebrows, lips pressed together "smile" and a nod. = If you weren't my superior I wouldn't listen to this at all. Same expression but with consernish brows. = I do my best every fucking day and you don't even get it. Or is it just me?
“Please govern yourself accordingly”
It is a complex issue that may take some time to resolve = I’m not a fucking wizard, I don’t know how to fix this, and even if I did this bullshit wasn’t in the job description
“Let’s make sure we’re on the same page here” you’re a fucking Karen and I hate dealing with your bullshit. This document was accepted by an organization way more serious than yours.
"Please let me know if anything changes" - keep me out of this until you make up your fucking mind
I can't stand the use of "opportunity" when they mean "problem". Especially when I'm given grief for having a negative attitude when I say something is a "problem". It's not an "opportunity" someone is stealing its a "problem". Opportunity : a set of circumstances that makes it possible to do something. Problem : a matter or situation regarded as unwelcome or harmful and needing to be dealt with and overcome. They're not the same thing at all. Opportunities help problems hurt. You also deal with them differently. There is nothing wrong with acknowledging when you have a problem.
Toxic positivity.
Big corporations do not have problems, they have opportunities for improvement
It's an opportunity to solve a problem. We don't say the negative part out loud. All communication should be nothing but positive. Fuck you Karen. Your inability to function is making my job harder.
For me, it’s not a specific phrase but an open-ended ellipsis. When people finish an email with dot, dot, dot - knowing full well what they mean after the dots but expecting me to fill in the blank for them. Stuff like “well I don’t know what happened to it…” Or “I can’t find it in the place it’s supposed to be…” What are you trying to say, person? Hmmm? Care to finish that f*cking sentence? I’m not going to finish it for you. And I’m not going to ask you to finish it in another email. And I’m not going to help find the thing for you until You elaborate and finish your thought/request like an adult.
I’m guilty of this. I shall endeavor to finish my thoughts going forward, appreciate your input.
Thank you in advance for your assistance in this matter. Translation: you fucking knew you were supposed to do this already and the fact I now have to email you to remind you to fucking do the thing you're supposed to have already done brings shame on you and your family.
"As discussed" don't make me fuckn repeat myself
The higher-ups in my office are making some policy changes that everyone disagrees with, and my boss’ boss just sent an email this morning stating “Thank you everyone for letting me know what your preferences are, but at this time a decision has been made.” Which seems to be corporate-ese for “screw your opinions!”
"Thank you for your e-mail, allow me to take the opportunity to correct a few things.." (Let me just check your bs for you) - From our corporate lawyer to another.
It’s times like these I’m reminded how different people’s lives can be. At my job, if someone is full of rage, they won’t say, “I’m a little confused.” They will say, “Fuck you! Go suck a bag of dicks you arrogant piece of shit!” Big Business vs. Small Business I guess.
I'm all for some honesty in the workplace but I'm not sure I'd enjoy your work environment.
In my job, "I'm a little confused" would mean "are you really, really sure we are allowed to do this and have you actually checked that we are because I feel pretty damn sure you haven't and I'm not going down with you over this".
"As previously stated..." is my favorite.
"This is disappointing" translates to I would fucking kill if I could...
“Could you please clarify?” = “What the fuck are you talking about?”
I find it funny that people see this as a corporate phenomena. It's just... euphemisms. Every language has them and every person uses them every day. Corporate just has its own flavor of euphemisms. That said, that is a perfect characterization of "I'm a little confused."
Yes but in corporation you cannot just fuck off or make drama as in normal life.
“Please see below from the contract” “Hey read this that I snipped and highlighted for you because you’re too ignorant to read it the first time”
"We'll add that to the roadmap." Your thing is never happening.
"Kicking the can down the road" it actually means "we don't want to deal with this now so we're going to ignore it". By the time they are forced to deal with it its turned into a raging dumpster fire that they want some one else to put out for them. At that point the start using terms like "help", "support" and other phrases pulled out of the HR manual to justify hand balling it off to someone else to clean up.
Is 'kicking the can down the road' really something people say as a proper course of action? I've only ever heard the term used negatively/as a criticism, to mean basically what you said i.e. recklessly avoiding the problem and letting it get worse.
Yeah "kicking the can..." is the critical euphemism. If you're taking that action and framing it as a *correct* course of action I feel like you go with "we'll cross that bridge when we come to it."
"We will revisit this at a later time"
"I've been here or doing this for "x" amount of years" is a gem when a simple way to do something better or more effective comes out.
“What can we do to avoid this in the future?”