In the past few years I have been the victim of some rather shoddily written electronic communications. This is pretty much the same for personal and business e-mails.
Therefore, I took it upon myself to put together this handy print out and keep guide for any person wishing to communicate with me.
Greetings and Salutations
The first thing I see when I open an e-mail is the salutation. Alright, the second thing after the subject line.
Do not, under any circumstances start an e-mail with the greeting “Elo”. The last time I checked ELO was a British band formed in the 1970s. When I read a salutation like “Elo”, I’ve already pre-judged the rest of the message. Regardless of what the contents might be.
Acceptable salutations are “Hello”, “Hi”, or for very close friends: “Hey”.
Take the time to write a proper salutation, and I might even take the rest of the message seriously.
Spelling and Grammar.
Bad spelling has to be the biggest bugbear of my existence. I have in the course of however many years I have been receiving e-mails, read many, many misspelled words. Some of the worst offenders have turned out to be so-called “professionals”. Project managers are some of the worst culprits.
Just recently I have received messages where the person correctly spells “discussed” in one sentence, and in the very next sentence spells it wrong. I need to say however, bad spelling makes me “incomfotable”*.
Nearly as bad as bad spelling is the bad grammar. This goes for certain “professional” project managers and other esteemed colleagues.
This includes using present tense instead of past tense. Misplaced apostrophes is one of the most common crimes. Remember, boys and girls, apostrophe denotes possession.
Sentences and Paragraphs.
If you have trouble with sentence structures and paragraphs, then don’t even bother sending me a message.
I just recently had a message sent to me that was one long paragraph. I received it on my phone, since I was nowhere near my computer at the time. After scowling at it for five minutes, I gave up. I could only read it properly only the next day.
In order for me to make sense of it I had to copy it into Word, and insert paragraph breaks where I saw fit. Not to mention doing a spell check so I don’t throw up in my mouth while reading it.
In conclusion I just want you to know this: If you want me to take any electronic communications from you seriously, then follow these simple rules. In all honesty, they are not even my rules. We were all taught these at school. That is if you went to school somewhere between the eighties and nineties.
Call me anal or fussy, but grammar rules were not meant to be broken. If you break them I will think you are an idiot and mock you.
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