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Emoticons in the Workplace
Platonic writes "According to the New York Times, the Emoticon has become much more than something the kids do after school. The little guys seem to have found their way into the workforce: being used by stock brokers and even the U.S. Military.
From TFA: 'I mean, it's ludicrous," said Ms. Feldman, 25. "I'm not going to feel better about losing hundreds of thousands of dollars because someone puts a frown face to regretfully inform me.'"
I once had one of my (less astute) bosses come to me and ask me about email styling. Specifically, he wanted to know if the guy was YELLING at him in the email. The problem? The email was written in 18pt, Dark Brown, Comic Sans font. Obviously the (fairly important) guy used it as his standard email style. Of course, the more amusing part was that this boss "joked" that I had too much time on my hands because I knew Comic Sans on sight...
Though I have to say that the only thing more annoying than seeing Comic Sans in an email is seeing one of those hideous background templates. No, I don't want to see your email decked out in roses. No, I don't want to read your email in blue text on black background. No, I don't want your 4pt font that matches your "professional" faded background. Black on white, 10-12pt font works fine, thankyouverymuch.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
This is true, as far as it goes, but when we're engaging in face to face conversation, we don't tend to hugely overstate our expressions in order to convey our feelings. An emoticon is a one-note emotional ejaculation (yea haha, I said...nevermind), and doesn't really convey anything except that you don't really mean what you're saying the way it sounds.
In an informal context, sure, a few emoticons are acceptable. In a formal situation, you need to take the time to make sure your writing accurately conveys your opinions and feelings, even if you have to spell it out more than you would in person.
The only times I really feel the need to use a smiley is when I'm being sarcastic or ironic, and that has no place in formal communication anyway.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
Business to customer, never use emoticons, avoid cultural references and slang (i.e. "hit it out of the park").
Inter-team communications within company, light to no use of emoticons, some slang (if teams in same country)
Intra-team, emoticons, abbrv, AFK, BRB, etc. slang. vastly more acceptable.
That'd be the rules where I work and they seem to work quite well.
-nB
whois gawk date unzip strip find touch finger mount join nice man top fsck grep eject more yes exit umount sleep dump
Hey, we were using multi-channel chat rooms on timesharing systems in the late 1970's. That's what the MULTI environment was for on CDC Cybers.
Mainframe/UNIX Bit Twiddler and long time Windows/Linux Hobbyist.
The Theorem Theorem: If If, Then Then.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_common_emotic ons
I was more focused on correcting the "first generation to grow up with chat rooms" thing, since I'm 44 and used live chat rooms (called "talk programs") all through high school.
:) or :-) until I became active on the BBS nets, though, sometime around 1990 or so. Before that, it was stuff like *GRIN* or *G*, and even after smilies became popular we were still using acronyms heavily like GD&R or LMAO.
I don't remember using
HTH. HAND.
Mainframe/UNIX Bit Twiddler and long time Windows/Linux Hobbyist.
The Theorem Theorem: If If, Then Then.