Day 242 – Why do kids not have ears, and some colleagues lack the ability to read an email properly?
Do we say things clearly enough? and directly enough? whether we write it or say it aloud? A subject I’ve touched on once or twice over the last year due to a few frustrations faced along the way.
I have a Dutch Hubbie. I’m used to receiving direct, though not to necessarily dealing direct. These guys are a nationality that are very clear to the point of sometimes being too obstinate and too direct! But at least you know what they mean…….
I sometimes look at the world around me, and in my ever-so-nice and polite English way, could sometimes SCREAM………… did you not hear, read or understand what I actually said in my own language!!
Today it happened at work, and then it happened at home. I fall into the trap of screaming at home (not nice) and trying to be as clear and polite as possible at work. What I have noticed is that I mainly communicate by spoken word at home, and email at work. I am seriously thinking of adopting the opposite. I could try the cool detached slightly-sarcastic methods on my ‘kids’ by email (which they could at least print out and refer to instead of ‘ in one ear and out the other’!) and see if this works any better……, and save my screaming matches to direct communication/confrontation via skype or face-to-face with ‘colleagues’ at work. Could be an interesting scenario.
Any other suggestions would be greatly appreciated…… may’be somewhere there is a middle ground?
Ideas via the Internet
- The Email Experiment Day 1: The 3-Hour Head Start (jessicahlawrence.com) – no emails before 12 noon!!
- Snail Mail My Email – A Worldwide Collaborative Art Project Transforming Emails To Handwritten Letters. – shame we missed the dates on this, you could send your message from email by good old fashion post (great way to avoid all that pinging back and forward on mis-understood emails!) May’be we should all just get writing again!!
- Business Email Tips (thinkup.waldenu.edu) – Like the idea of only accessing email at certain times, and broadcasting this.
Struggling to find ideas on how to deal with not listening tweeners………. the internet is full of the terrible two’s and teenagers, but what about the bit in-between?
Image via Funny Signs / funny-pictures-beaver-cant-hear-you.jpg (JPEG Image, 499×388 pixels).
Life with Lizzi 