I used to marvel at how bad managerial emails were, in terms of brevity and incompleteness (you know, where I would ask two questions and they would write back saying, "Yes," or "Sound good" [sic]), but I think in 2011 I am going to fully embrace that technique. I haven't yet because I expect 98% of people in the world won't understand that I'm doing it on purpose. But if they don't like me because I'm a bad emailer, then they probably weren't my friends in the first place.I like this "probably weren't my friends in the first place" reasoning and will probably use it a lot going forward.
This reminds me of a great poem by Mairéad Byrne in BOWLOH, called "How to Say Thanks When You Really Mean it But Don't Have Time Right Now" -- it reads, in its entirety:
THNAKS!
My book, Adam Robison and Other Poems, has been nominated for a Goodreads 2010 Best Book Award somehow. I'll take that. Will you vote for me, PLEASE? Click here to vote. If you don't vote for me, no problem, you probably weren't really my friend in the first place. If you do, THNAKS!
2 comments:
i don't get the tone of that comic. so, he responds right away to threats from his neighbor with a sort of long-winded evasion and he doesn't respond at all to his sweet aunt marleen? who is suppossed to be reading that comic? junior execs? is it supposed to be wry or pedagogical?
i voted for you.
Yeah, it is a failed comic, I think. My guess is The Oatmeal guy doesn't actually get a lot of email, he just doesn't like writing long responses. A better response to the neighbor about the bird would have been, "Sory."
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