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.'"

Comments

Re:Shocking!

[Anonymous Monkey]

Yeah, shocking. My boss, who holds a PhD in finance, and rags on me about my spelling regularly uses lol, brb, and the like. I got an e-mail the other day from an insurance company that contained two :).
Being of the first generation to grow up with chat rooms, IM and SMS, I find it entertaning that I don't use :) and people older than I do.

Wierd

Re:I wuv you!

[Aladrin]

Of course, it's always possible that she -knew- those were there and thought they were cute. Some people honestly don't realize that some things simply aren't done.

For instance, when I first joined this company, they had an employee (very nice, very good with customers) that absolutely refused to stop typing emails in all caps. After several customers had complained and every manager above them had had a talk with them, the owner had a talk... It ended in a screaming fit and I never did figure out if they quit or were fired. They simply could not accept that they were being rude, no matter how many times they were told so.

Re:Meh.

[EtoilePB]

This is how I always feel, as well. I'm guilty of using emoticons to excess when posting in forums online, and when modding communities I run (particularly when deleting posts made by teenage girls who already think they suck, an occasional :) helps them not take it too personally). But anytime I catch myself dropping one into an e-mail at work, even into an informal e-mail directed at a colleague I consider myself friendly with, I delete it immediately.

I'm in my late 20s and so supposedly of this generation that finds it "acceptable," but I was still taught to consider a workplace, and workplace communications, more formal than that. If your words are not sufficient to communicate your tone and message, then you need to work harder on communicating in writing.

Re:Emotions are not mutually exclusive from work

[Skadet]

I do get the utility of the emoticons, but they irk me when they are either a cop-out that the lazy people use to avoid sharpening their writing, or a way to soften the tone of the communication by people who are too afraid of offending someone.

I consider myself a fairly sharp writer -- not author material, perhaps, but easily in the top percentile when it comes to expressing myself through written word. However, it seems I have a knack for coming across as a smart-ass in my informal communication. A main complaint about me in my WoW guild (I'll wait for you to stop laughing. . . okay.) is that I seem like a total dick in guild chat. But the same people who say that will add that I'm the "nicest guy" on Ventrilo.

I really can think of no way to correct that without talking to people as if they're children -- congratulating them on the smallest of accomplishments, peppering my words with :) and ~_^ . . . without hearing the inflection of your voice, a lot of people will automatically assume that a playful or sarcastic, or playfully sarcastic comment is rude and mean-spirited.

Re:Emotions are not mutually exclusive from work

[AKAImBatman]

Here's what I just typed out:
An... amusing take. :-)

Now let's see that again:
An... amusing take.

And again:
An... amusing take. :-/

Once more:
An... amusing take. :-(

Interesting how it goes from light, to dry, to wry, to negative, isn't it? ;-)

FWIW, I was thinking more along the lines of:

"One of the key issues to understand about Chernobyl is that the media greatly exaggerated the death rate. Make no mistake, there *were* thousands of people who contracted thyroid cancer, but the vast majority were treated and are still alive today. According to the international research body setup to study the effects of Chernobyl, the actual death toll was (thankfully) closer to only a few dozen individuals. :-)"