However, if they are simply terse and serious most of the time anyway, then they are just being themselves. I would be nice if they were chattier, but it's just their usual personality.
A period can completely change the meaning of a message.
One of the managers in my company has the bad habit of making speech to text replies to everything. The end result is:
“Okay, Kayodé.
Thanks.”
Those replies do not help my anxiety disorder. XD
The employee was female and was very offended.
The manager may have intended to be helpful.
It looks like this is called tone policing so maybe it is offensive feedback in fact:
> We asked them questions about the email and then asked objective observers to read the same messages. We found people who had received the emails directly rated the messages far more negatively than did the observers.
> Many were outwardly civil and even polite: “We acknowledge that our request has a very short timeline and certainly appreciate that you are very busy.” Or, “Just wondering why no update has been received. No news is good news hopefully!”
> The x project - I think it needs y and z aspects. Let's meet Monday and discuss.
> Boss
Since context is important, let's say this is the message you received after a largely successful demonstration of something you've been working on.
Slightly worried I’m constantly offending people like back when I heard that putting a period at the end of a text is the same thing as stabbing them through the neck with a letter opener.
the super weird one is (i live in china currently) that there's a smiley face that is not a smiley face. i always used it. i was hip. i was fitting in. my emoticon game was making progress and then apparently i found out i was doing the equivalent of a reddit /s at the end of all my messages: "that smiley face is a fake smile" how could i know that? it's a yellow smiley face! haha
Before I try to correct an error, or ask for anything, I always preface it with "Thanks a lot for <replying, doing something previously, I agree with X, etc...>"
However, this would probably work on most.
In this case, however, I don't think they realise they're doing it.
Either you cushion the blow and do what the GP does and have the effect you mention, or they don't and come off as "offensive".
It seems communication of any kind these days is a double-edged sword.
Trust me, no normal person is gets upset if you give them thanks or a compliment.
If you know a better way to do that, I'm all ears.
It might be good to first read some past explanations about why the rules are the way they are, so as not to repeat arguments that have already been answered. This subthread gives a worked, detailed example (but it's long): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27161447.
A few other past explanations:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26157447 (Feb 2021)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22805993 (April 2020)
[0] https://www.wsj.com/articles/sending-a-smiley-face-make-sure...
I now realize that’s not the case, and use them myself
I was surprised to eventually learn that the person behind these weird emails was the friendliest student in the class. Apparently he just wasn't used to emailing. To him, "no" was equivalent to "No, sorry, I don't think that's quite right. I'll try to follow up shortly with a more detailed answer."
They’re making up names on the spot and we’re nodding our heads as if these are accepted academic phenomenon
Email generally gets through way faster than a mail letter but is often thought of as being similar. (E)mail gets the text through and no more in general although it can carry pictures and other media. (E)mail is store and forward - it will tolerate delays and eventually arrive.
A phone call/direct conversation is immediate and generally requires more setup cost in time and effort. If the other end is unavailable it wont work at all. Telephone calls may suffer from lag and drop outs. Vocal comms do allow subtle extra information without needing crass emojis etc. Vocal comms are much faster.
There are other factors such as delaying tactics and the like. For example if your work stack is too much, you can simply ignore emails for a while but an incoming call has to be answered or not at that point in time. To be fair, most people understand that non answer means try again later even if you know they could have answered at that time.
Emails can be sat on. Emails can also be fibbed about: "Sorry, my spam filter must have eaten it" or "Your GMail is not sending to my Hotmail".
Email is also often treated as IM. The thing about IM is it is instant by design and is supposed to be a two way chat. smtp isn't.
On balance: for me, I prefer telephony or direct contact than email unless it is impractical or I need a record - even then I still can record a conversation.
I wonder, how did they control for the context? Obviously, the person who received the mail knows much more context about it, than a side observer.
What might be innocent to an observer may have an undercurrent only seen from the historical context of the receiver.
