Payne, Bickers & Nogood Ltd.

You all know her. She’s aggressive. She thinks she’s being assertive around the office.

She strong arms a situation that often times does not need her input. Her voice is a little louder than necessary, her daily correspondence is grammatically flawed, yet too saccharine-injected to correct, and she always has a “game-plan in action”.

… and she gets away with it, because people in management have been taught to let her have her way. “She gets shit done!”.

Sure, but at the cost of whom? Everyone. And that’s not an indication of mutual respect within the work place.

There’s nothing the rest of us can do about this kind of person, except to ignore her as much as humanly possible. Keep doing what you do best, and do NOT stoop to her level. Yeah, yeah, mom said that too. Fact of the matter is, she’ll never pick up what you’re trying to throw down. Eventually, this person folds under the mountain of pressure they tend to create for themselves.

But if you’re that person, maybe you should ask yourself:

• “Is that duty that I’m about to man-handle, actually another person’s job?”
• “What kind of outcome should I expect from what I’m about to do, and will anyone miss me when I’m buried to the left of the parking structure?”
• “If I really need extra confidence, maybe a bit of concentrated effort into my actual responsibilities would earn the respect I lust after.”
• “Perhaps I should take some time to look at my co-workers as something other than prey.”
• “Letting people complete their sentences before interjecting just might feel good!”
• “Am I capable of understanding and not justifying when people have become angry with me?”
• “Am I constantly displaying my stress level by lashing out like a menstruating monster?”
• “Why do I find sticky notes on my monitor indicating personal doom?”

Let’s face it. Some people are so belligerent, they will never see the light. Chalk this up to bad parenting if it helps. Learn to work around those people, keeping yourself calm and serene at all times.

And keep authoring those cathartic revenge notes. Yeah, I know you’re the one doing it.

…please continue to text or phone your friends and relatives regardless of the time, being fully aware that your message recipient leaves their phone notification sounds on, 24 hours per day in case of child-emergency, or brutal on-call responsibilities which leave precious time for sleep.

Go ahead with those heavy balls, and leave a voice message that causes the phone to blink repeatedly in the dark until tended to. “Hi, this is ______, ummmmmm just wanted to say hi. Call me!”  By doing so, you’ve wasted an extraordinary amount of a person’s time, broken their sleep, and probably started them off on a terrible day with a vapid message which requires zero response. Expect Viking-level repercussion.

Or even better, make sure the recipient knows your full disregard for those common and oft-stated office rules, and keep those messages rolling in at all hours! Because your head is on fire, right?

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I feel that I must repeat myself, because people just aren’t getting it.

Do NOT use the phrase “Please Advise” at the end of your business e-mails. It renders everything you just said in your e-mail immediately invalid. In my heart and soul, I picture the person who dares type this phrase as having Dalek qualities.

The business etiquette of an Imbecile.

A Sleestak with a rubber forehead to bounce things off. Get it? 

Now, what exactly do you want to be advised on?

One of the worst things you can do to a busy person or department, is to drop a blind transfer call on them. It’s impossibly rude. When a shitty receptionist or another department doesn’t want to take the time to gather relevant information to deliver that before transferring a call, it’s an indication of potential incompetence.

This very situation has caused me on several occasions, to lose data, or crash a report that was running, just to find out that Mrs Smith’s issue could have been handled differently. The call didn’t actually need to be transferred to me at all.

Afterward, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve wanted to scream out,

“Are you fishing out up there at the front counter?  How many times have we been over this basic routine?” 

Forcing a client to re-tell their story without warning incites anger, which is then also blind-transferred onto the recipient. Believe me, that person bearing the complaint does not want to state their case again. This is seen in the consumer world as good old-fashioned poor customer service, and a waste of time.

Let’s get it right, shall we?

• Accept the call with a cordial, but not too lengthy introduction.
• Speak clearly, enunciate your words, and do not raise your voice as if you’re yelling across the distant phone lines of yore. If you have a fantastic accent, I cannot understand you any better if you shove the words into my auditory canal at a high decibel.
• Stop what you’re doing, and pay attention to the caller. Stop eating, stop talking to your girlfriend. Listening does wonders for being able to pass along a competent message.
• Clarify what is needed to correctly pass the message onward. The more information passed to the recipient, the better. Do not waste anyone’s time, in other words.
• If the information is best delivered to the particular recipient by e-mail, do so! When a client hears you typing their request to a recipient, they feel validated and know the message will be delivered.
• Do not drop a call onto an unsuspecting co-worker, who is likely in the middle of a project that you’re unqualified to assist with, and therefore do not understand. Don’t do that to people.
• If a call needs to be transferred, first check to see if the individual is available. Nothing sets a client off like being blind transferred into nothingness. 

Next time, office lunch etiquette!

Just a few thoughts today, on e-mail composition in a professional setting, in the case of wanting appear semi-professional:

• Signatures need not include 14 lines of physical addresses, fax numbers, license information, multiple degrees, and posturing, followed with a lengthy disclosure statement. If your e-mail is required to include a disclosure statement due to legal regulations, try removing it from your e-mail reply settings, reserving it for just your initial message. 

• Do not answer an e-mail with the simple word, “Ok.” It takes away from someone else’s time to look at this e-mail. Be effective in your correspondence. 

• Text message shorthand is reserved for people who have their grade 5. You are a grown person, and therefore should speak and type in correct sentences. If I receive an e-mail written in SMS language from you, consider fucking right off. 

• “Please Advise” has to be one of the most asinine ways a person can sign off on an e-mail. This phrase sounds robotic, impersonal, and a lot like foreign spam. Say what you mean, in plain language. Just what do you want the recipient to advise you on? Leaving a lot to interpretation, eh?
  

• Believe it or not, there are people out there who are still typing in ALL CAPS.

• Over-punctuation is ridiculous. Seven exclamation marks and some asterisks are not going to grab my attention any better than just one. Just slap me, would ya?

• The subject field is reserved for a subject matter. Not for the entire message. An indication that a lazy half-wit wrote the e-mail? You’ll find the entire message in the subject line. 

• Do not “reply to all”, unless necessary. 

• Do not forward your entire office’s e-mail thread to a new person who has to figure out what in the sam hell is going on. One person needs to gather their wits, and send out one concise message, once the problem has been established.

• And finally,  if you’re in the “cc” spot, it’s usually not necessary that you answer the e-mail. You’re just being included for your information.

“You’re a loud mouth baby. You better shut up - I’m gonna beat you up.”

 - The Ramones

Today, we’re going to review a few matters on phone etiquette and volume control in the office. There’s at least one loud mouth bastard in every office. He or she grates on the nerves of everyone, and you know exactly what you’d like to do to that person after hours.

Speaking at a volume reserved for romantic nuances across a noise truck stop in Virginia just isn’t appropriate for the office.

The guy across the cube wall doesn’t need to know everything his flip-top headed co-worker is doing. For instance, I truly believe that anyone who codes needs full concentration, and should be allowed to shut out the world. (And carry an aluminum bat in the office.)

Volume rules apply to cell phones just the same as land lines.

Cell phone use does not magically transport the caller into a world of isolation. A couple of key points to cell phone fans:

• Using the speakerphone on your cell phone, and then holding at arms length while you yell into it, is obnoxious as hell.
• Use of the hands-free devices is fine, but we can still hear you! No need to yell, and pretend that appearing to talk to yourself is normal.
• Talking on the phone loudly in the bathroom is just freaking weird.

Over-use of the speakerphone

It’s rude to call people on speakerphone without warning. It takes just a couple of seconds before they’re fully aware that others are listening in the room without permission. This feels like interrogation. Why not approach this by way of e-mail, to avoid putting someone on the spot, Gambino?

I frequently ask people to take me off speakerphone, and insist that I do not need to have my answers projected across a room for other’s instant gratification. If I can hear you eating, talking to your secretary, or masturbating (it’s happened, I swear.), I honestly don’t want to have a business conversation with you.

Focus people. Focus on the moment at hand. Communicate your needs or intentions effectively, and with the expected courtesy.

No matter what you think, everyone can hear you tapping…tapping…tapping on your desk with that fucking pen. Someone’s going to crack, just you wait.

Send me another email to ask me if I got your phone message a moment ago.
I dare you.

Over-communication in the office decreases work productivity, and creates tension between co-workers. Respect for your colleague’s work-flow shows respect for their expertise and ability to react to e-mails and phone messages within an appropriate amount of time, without your “help”. The opposite strategy makes you look and sound like a heroin charged squirrel.