How to professionally say (2022)
github.com
github.com
If I have a terrible idea, or am over complicating things, just tell me. And tell me why, and maybe I’ll see it your way, or maybe I’ll convince you the complexity is essential, but we’ll be better for it either way.
In the absence of trust, one often needs to resort to passive, blameless, less direct language.
So I work on creating the trust and noting where it is impossible so I can adjust.
Who defaults to corporate speak is often an indication to how much they can be trusted.
Those who default to corporate speak are those who have no power to speak plainly. Sometimes they have no power because they cannot be trusted. But more often it's because whoever they report to cannot be trusted, and maybe also they don't trust whoever they are speaking to.
And to drill down into this a little further, the process of building trust is one where you each show the other person that the longer term relationship (personal or professional) is more important than any short term gains you might get by using their plain speaking against them. It is harder to do with a power imbalance, because one person isn't risking as much as the other.
If you can trust that someone will be direct with you whenever you're annoying them, it means that you don't have to spend time/effort trying to divine some hidden or subtle meaning in every normal/non-confrontational communication they send your way.
The point is that little kids experience all kind of much nastier "non-professionall behavior" in school, yet when we say to adult "fuck you" all hell breaks loose. Pathetic.
Not everything in life is about utility, some people want to just feel nice and don’t deal with your negative energy and that is completely fine.
At work, it's about utility, not about being nice, looking good, making jokes.
At your home, you can feel nice and demand of others to do so.
> At work, it's about utility, not about being nice, looking good, making jokes.
At best your message sounds rude, at worst you sound like a jerk. And I say that as someone who used to think like you.
I care about the job being done correctly, efficiently. I care about the users. I don't care about poor IT developers, who have the worst life can offer (sarcasm). Get some perspective, man!
If you can't take "fuck you" or equivalent while passionately doing something, just move away, let the grown-ups do the thing, don't make this thing about you, your feelings or your morning sugar.
It's this type of prima dona type of engineer that I try to avoid at all cost.
A lot of the suggestions on "How to professionally say" are not only more polite, but also more helpful than the original knee-jerk reply.
"This is not my problem" -> "I recommend directing this issue to <Name> as they have the proper expertise to best assist you"
If you find yourself having to talk like this all the time at work I recommend reading "An Elegant Puzzle" by Will Larson.
Basically the office equivalent of the plot to Hot Fuzz.
Speaking for myself, I have great interest in living / working in western Europe, namely Netherlands or Denmark, but as someone living in Japan for a decade and appreciating their polite communication and respect for personal boundary, I'm concerned if I would enjoy life in an environment with more straightforward communication.
PS: here's the direct link to the website: https://howtoprofessionallysay.akashrajpurohit.com/
Also if this is indeed satire, it's so subtle as to be functionally nonexistent.
Original: Stop assigning me so many tasks if you want any of them to get done
Alternative: As my workload is quite heavy, can you help me understand what I should reprioritize to accommodate this new task?
The cynic in me says that this started out as an earnest endeavor but the feedback was so brutal that the author backpedaled and "pivoted" the product with a rebranding as satire.
Satire is generally incisive in some way and uses constructs like exaggeration, irony, etc. in a humorous take.
Here's a few more:
Original: Stop calling me before my workday even starts
Alternative: If you need to contact me, please note that my working hours being at 8 am and 6 pm. Communications received prior to this won’t be seen.
Original: How much does this role pay?
Alternative: Can you share what the overall compensation looks like for this role?
Sorry but if this is satire then it's the dry-wit equivalent of the cinnamon challenge.
Without wishing to cause offence..... Americans are rather well known for an inability to spot the satire and sarcasm that pervades our conversation here in Blighty.
I really don't understand why people can't be spoken to directly, only in the workplace.
Trying to dance around people's egos is so childish.
That's exactly what I thought. These "professional" responses are hilariously passive-aggressive. Hats off to the author! I just have the fear that some people will use these unironically...
Perhaps a better approach would be to skip the "anger" bit and perhaps fast-forward to the "respect" bit. If that's not possible, then don't be surprised when people stop being honest with you. And most certainly don't complain about it.
"As per my prediction, this outcome does not come as a surprise."
Might as well say "go fuck yourself, eat shit, I was right"
"As per my prediction, this outcome does not come as a surprise."
I don't know if there needs to be a "country flag" next to each suggestion or something, because no native English speaker from the United States would ever recommend responding like this. There is simply no possible means of delivery in which this line does not come across as incredibly smug and condescending.
These don't feel professional, they feel like a satire of professional-speak. Like they use all the sterotypical words but they dont sound like things someone would actually say. Unless you are pissed at someone and are trying to tell someone to "fuck off" without getting fired. Which i guess is the point of the site, but not how professional communication works.
That said this is satire, and saying it twice does make the joke better.
But this tends to happen between people or teams that don’t know each other.
I've lived in the western US all my life, and worked for many companies large and small.
In my entire life, I have never heard a native speaker of American English talk or write like that, either in a business or personal context.
They do sound like stereotypical Indian business English. No offense to my friends and colleagues from India! It may just be what Americans imagine Indian English sounds like.
"As per my prediction, this outcome does not come as a surprise." Sounds dickish to this American as well. I think there’s no polite way to say “I told you so.” Maybe something along the lines of “yeah, well, that’s about what we expected, but it was a nice try” could work? It still isn’t great but at least it puts you together on the losing team.
Not exactly. You can use each one alone in this context, but they don't quite mean the same thing.
"As predicted" means something like "In the way that was predicted".
"Per my prediction" means "According to my prediction".
As you noted, the combination doesn't really make sense: "In the way that according to". But it's an idiom. People say it just because they've heard others say it.
The Merriam Webster definition for "per" (sense 3) says "according to — often used with as". Like many idioms, it doesn't necessarily make sense if you break it down.
In my experience the best people to join new teams are the ones who take the time to not state anything for a couple of weeks. Join the meetings, take notes, ask questions, but refrain from stating things. Only after they have a good picture they can start contributing. I like those people.
Like it or not, this is a truth.
> simply to say nothing (quickly)
Love it! Say nothing quickly :) Basically don't even bother with the "I told you so" response ... is my intrepretation.
Tbh I don't think the worst problem here is with stating something is overcomplicated but the directness and variously pointed use of 'you'. People will naturally be more defensive.
Many of the example statements involve this use of 'you' in the same fashion. 'Did you even read my email?', 'If you would have read the whole email you’d know the answer to this'. It's a deliberate use of 'you' like an intensifier.
With minor rephrasing these could just be expressed more passively, for scenarios where one doesn't want an almost completely euphemistic tone.
My preference is to restate this as a question: "Is there any reason why we can't just do <X>?". Sometimes the response I got was: "Hmm, you're right, that had not occurred to me", sometimes it was "Yes, we need to handle <Y> and <Z>".
Regarding 'Did you even read my email?', the HN guidelines talk about almost this exact phrase:
> Please don't comment on whether someone read an article. "Did you even read the article? It mentions that" can be shortened to "The article mentions that".
Don’t use comments in this thread as a benchmark on what people expect from you in the office.
One wrong phrase, at a wrong time, with a wrong person can lead to quite bad consequences.
I like how professional is written in quotes.
{
"id": 1,
"question": "You are overcomplicating this",
"answer": "Being mindful of timelines. Let’s concentrate on the initial scope.",
"alternativeAnswers": []
},
{
"id": 2,
"question": "That meeting sounds like a waste of my time",
"answer": "I’m unable to add value to this meeting but I would be happy to review the minutes.",
"alternativeAnswers": []
},
> You’ll see if you read the comments here that some people are like “the alternatives are bullshit corporate speak and infuriate me”, and some are like “yes, at last, a way to help people be more polite / better communicators”. There’s a smattering of “this is passive aggressive” thrown in.
> One of the broad pitches PDI at work types make is that the lower the PDI, the more direct communications are preferred; the higher, the more ‘diplomatic’ the communications are preferred. My vibe on your list is that it’s just a tad more diplomatic than Silicon Valley wants to be, hence the slight negative ‘passive aggressive’ reactions.
> Some of the lowest PDI countries in the world are Israel, and many Northern European countries, and it fits my experience that in those places additional respect is given for bluntness - as Jan Maas in Ted Lasso says “I’m not rude, I’m Dutch.” As a broad stereotype using the alternate wordings you give would be a sign you are not someone to be respected in that environment.
* https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31224996#unv_31226119
For example the website suggest this “translation”: “Do your job!” -> “ It is my understanding that you are the appropriate person to contact in regards to this. But if there’s is someone better equipped for this let me know.”
Now the problem here is that i routinely send the second and it means what it says. It doesn’t mean what it purports to “translate from”. What it means when i send the second is that the process and the responsibility is unclear. I want my request to be dealt with, but if due to the above mentioned vagueness I found the wrong person to ask I want to be told. The alternative being that i found the wrong person/process and they either silently ignore my request because it is not their problem, or get mad that now they have a new responsibility seemingly dumped on them.
I would not use such language if I know-know that it is your job to help me. For example if my laptop dies I go to IT and ask for their help. That is such a clear cut responsibility that I don’t need to cushion the request. But if I need help with something which rarely comes up, or something where it is not immediately obvious who is responsible then I will add that line. For example if I need someone to register a subdomain for me for the first time in forever that could be IT, or Infra, or Networking. So i would just pick whoever i suspect is the best fit, send a message with my request and end it with some variant of “if you are not the right person please redirect me”. If they read that and think based on this website that I’m just saying “Do your job!” that would confuse the issue and cause friction.
Many of the changes are active voice to passive voice. It might sound more polite, but in reality comes off as sneering or condescending.
For e.g., if I've already told you something, I usually change communication channels to a more casual one (pick up the phone, pop my head up, walk over, go on a chat channel) and say: "hey, that question you had, it's already addressed in my email, see this bit over here...".
I would not, as the website suggests, say any of this:
- "There seems to be a disconnect here as this information has already been provided."
- "The information has not changed since the last time it was communicated."
- "As indicated prior."
If you did this to me, I would think you are a jerk.
“I’d encourage everyone to read the full article …” = “did you even read the article?”
“I guess I’m the opposite” = “you’re wrong and I wish I could downvote you to hell”
I miss ngate
As a gen-x’er, I find myself having to navigate these waters often as directness is likened to being unnecessarily aggressive, rude, inappropriate, etc.
I would never speak like this and would quickly disabuse others using this style of speech. You’ll do more harm trying to be saccharine than just saying what you mean in an appropriate tone.
Somebody wasted a significant amount of their time on this slop.
be direct and clear without accusing or putting your emotional baggage in the conversation.
there are no shortcuts or maps that can take you out from the communication maze. know how to be adult & communicate and find your way.
It's not just professionalism. It's the challenge of removing irritation from one's communications because that generally doesn't get the best cooperation.