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

Shocking!

[UncleWilly]

:-O

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:Shocking!

[Anonymous Monkey]

As I said, my boss rags on me about my spelling ;)

Re:Shocking!

[Richard Steiner]

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.

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. :-)

Re:Shocking!

[thethibs]

You mean being of the first generation to grow up without TymeShare, BBSs and Usenet. One of the neat things about being really young is the illusion that your generation invented everything. (Although this doesn't explain Al Gore)

Re:Shocking!

[livingdeadline]

Does that mean you're enjoying some fresh vegetables? :P

Re:Shocking!

[nuzak]

> emoticons didn't come into *popular* usage until sometime around 1992

Being online didn't come into popularity until around 1992. Smilies were part of BBS culture long before then.

And yes, I rememember *grin* or /g/ or .g. and so on. Smilies were at least as common. The term "emoticon" came around a lot later, and I suppose it's more descriptive, but honestly I thought at the time it was a clumsy coinage that wouldn't stick.

Re:Shocking!

[Anonymous Coward]

I got an e-mail the other day from an insurance company that contained two :).

UR RATEZ WENT UP BY 22%!!! ZOMG WTF!!! :(
ON TEH BRITE SIZE OUR PROFITZ R UP BY 33%!!! LOL!!! :)

Re:Shocking!

[Richard Steiner]

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.

I don't remember using :) 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.

HTH. HAND.

Re:Shocking!

[Richard Steiner]

Even Doctor Who encountered cyber stuff earlier than that! :-) His first encounter with Cybermen was in 1966 according to this article.

Re:Shocking!

[multipartmixed]

> Smilies were part of BBS culture long before then.

Interesting, where are you from?

Not around here they weren't. I started BBSing in 1985, heavily in 1987, but didn't get into Fidonet until ... 1991? And I was never into LD BBSing.

I'm quite certain of the date smileys became part of my "online lexicon" because I remember where I was when somebody said "turn your head, sideways, dumb-ass".

Too bad you can't google for :-)

> The term "emoticon" came around a lot later, and I suppose
> it's more descriptive, but honestly I thought at the time
> it was a clumsy coinage that wouldn't stick.

If it makes you feel any better, I thought that FTP-with-pictures (HTTP) would be a passing fad. Whoops. My mistake there was not realizing that the hyper part of HTTP was different than the graphical part of Excalibur BBS systems.

Emotions are not mutually exclusive from work

[zCyl]

While there are places emoticons clearly do not belong, such as in formal business documents, there are also quite reasonable places to consider using them, such as informal communications between people engaged in business. Smiling, at its most basic form, is a signal that something is not a danger, and acts as a tool for bonding. This has intrinsic value for business, and it's why people also sometimes smile while conducting business in person. Why not extend this capability to less formal electronic communication for business as well since the tool already exists?

Re:Emotions are not mutually exclusive from work

[AKAImBatman]

Smiling, at its most basic form, is a signal that something is not a danger, and acts as a tool for bonding.

I don't know about bonding, but I've found myself using emoticons on Slashdot more and more often. The problem I found was that too many people were reading an ultra-serious-- or even accusatory! --tone into posts that were intended to be light-hearted and friendly. Sprinkling the post with :-), :-P, or :-/ here and there can help get the correct tone across, even if it looks kind of lame. :-/

Of course, there will always be those who either miss the purpose of the emoticons or willfully ignore their purpose in communicating tone, but I have found that it clears up the majority of misunderstandings before they occur.

Re:Emotions are not mutually exclusive from work

[ggKimmieGal]

I agree with using emoticons on Slashdot. Sometimes people will read your comment too quickly, and get all huffy about something in it. However, 90% of the time, the tone that they got was not the one you intended to communicate. Even if you clearly communicate through words what your intent/tone is, sometimes people just don't get it because they read what they want to read. Faces and facial expressions are something we understand from the time we are born. So, like you said, they clearly communicate the tone of the comment.

Re:Emotions are not mutually exclusive from work

[somersault]

I don't like your tone.. are you trying to say that I read comments too quickly, and get all huffy? How could you be so mean? *cries*

Re:Emotions are not mutually exclusive from work

[Aceticon]

Same experience here.

Often enough, half the skill in delivering a good joke is in the visual clues one gives (especially when you're being ironic) and in the written medium (especially short articles) without emoticons, all those visual clues are lost.

For example, it's one thing to say:

- Slackware is clearly the easiest, most user friendly Linux distro.

and another to say

- Slackware is clearly the easiest, most user friendly Linux distro ;^D

Re:Emotions are not mutually exclusive from work

[AKAImBatman]

a cop-out that the lazy people use to avoid sharpening their writing

"Proper" writing often requires a great deal more of proof-reading and rewrites than most people are willing to put into a quick post to a forum or an email to a friend. Thus emoticons are less of a "cop out" and more of a useful shortcut in communicating.

a way to soften the tone of the communication by people who are too afraid of offending someone

Why should I want to offend someone who I'm trying to have a pleasant conversation with? Part of intelligent discourse is to address sensitive issues. If you don't keep your tone soft, you may run into a hard wall when emotional investments in the topic are brought to light.

Take Chernobyl as an example. Discussing the actual number of deaths is an emotionally charged issue. Simply stating that the actual death count was vastly exaggerated by the media and that only a few dozen people died will get you a response to the effect of "you heartless bastard!" before you can even get to the issue of the thousands of victims who had to be treated for thyroid cancer. "Softing" one's speech to the point of clinical analysis combined with with a "warm" understanding of other's feelings can help you get farther in a discussion of the issue than immediately offending them, unintentionally or otherwise.

While some don't see the point of such emotionally-charged discourse, I've found that there are often solid reasons at the heart of such emotion. These reasons can often help in shaping a clear, balanced opinion rather than immediately taking sides.

Re:Emotions are not mutually exclusive from work

[Altus]

Maybe they are used by people who are sick of being misunderstood constantly.

How do you get sarcasm across in a post? is that really any better than an emoticon?

I have often seen people mod down sarcastic posts or respond aggressively to a post that clearly had no ill intent. You can be the best writer on the web and it still only takes one idiot to misunderstand what you wrote. An emoticon is protection against such idiots.

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

[Chysn]

Take Chernobyl as an example. Discussing the actual number of deaths is an emotionally charged issue. Simply stating that the actual death count was vastly exaggerated by the media and that only a few dozen people died will get you a response to the effect of "you heartless bastard!" before you can even get to the issue of the thousands of victims who had to be treated for thyroid cancer. "Softing" one's speech to the point of clinical analysis combined with with a "warm" understanding of other's feelings can help you get farther in a discussion of the issue than immediately offending them, unintentionally or otherwise. Let's take that concept for a ride:

The actual death count at Chernobyl was vastly exaggerated by the media :-D . Only a few dozen people died :)

Re:Emotions are not mutually exclusive from work

[AndersOSU]

Clearly you're right. There is no possible way to convey sarcasm in text without including an emoticon.

Re:Emotions are not mutually exclusive from work

[prionic6]

You clearly understand the difference between sarcasm and irony.

Re:Emotions are not mutually exclusive from work

[halber_mensch]

Sprinkling the post with :-), :-P, or :-/ here and there can help get the correct tone across, even if it looks kind of lame. :-/

<?XML version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<tone xmlns="http://smileysarebad.com/xsd/tone">
<facetious>Hasn't XML, in its infinite glory in all applications, already given us a method that's a little less lame?</facetious>
</tone>

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. :-)"

Re:Emotions are not mutually exclusive from work

[AKAImBatman]

<voice-impression>
<Teal-C>Indeed. Though is it not overly verbose for regular communications, Mr. Mensch?</Teal-C>
</voice-impression>

:-P

Re:Emotions are not mutually exclusive from work

[myowntrueself]

the actual death toll was (thankfully) closer to only a few dozen individuals. :-)"

You need to be careful how you terminate sentences, quoting etc with emoticons.

That just looked as if you said:

the actual death toll was (thankfully) closer to only a few dozen individuals. :-)" (slurp, yum! spaghetti!!)

Re:Emotions are not mutually exclusive from work

[Adambomb]

Why should I want to offend someone who I'm trying to have a pleasant conversation with? Part of intelligent discourse is to address sensitive issues. If you don't keep your tone soft, you may run into a hard wall when emotional investments in the topic are brought to light. Um, remember that such writing not only has to be produced but also UNDERSTOOD. I have found using emoticons is sometimes the only way to get people to understand the tone and context without a massive amount of overhead.

Some people just require either a brick or a sandwich to get it.

The world is not yet ready! ;[

[HitekHobo]

I can only speak for myself, but I always get the feeling that I'm dealing with the lowest possible tier of CSR when I start getting emoticons or excessive punctuation in my communications.

Re:The world is not yet ready! ;[

[pbhj]

omgponies roflmao

#;o)>

Re:The world is not yet ready! ;[

[networkBoy]

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

Re:The world is not yet ready! ;[

[iabervon]

And, of course, it's exactly the same as the use of facial expressions and informal speech in face-to-face interaction. The (negative) example from the article is one where it would be similarly inappropriate for the other party to look distinctly sad in a face-to-face conversation, so the emoticon version is also bad. Now, maybe some people are using emoticons to express things they wouldn't express in person, indicating a loss of formality due to the medium where it's required, but that's hardly the same thing, and hardly specific to emoticons.

Meh.

[SatanicPuppy]

The gist of the article seems to be, "This is the way it is now, so it's acceptable." I don't really agree.

It's an informal style, so sure, where informality is allowed, sure, why not? If you feel comfortable dropping your boss a joke email, then there is no reason you shouldn't throw in a random emoticon in routine correspondence, but I would seriously recommend against using the "unhappy face" to deliver any sort of bad news, or adding in random emoticons on anything resembling official correspondence, or anything that might get passed on up the line.

It's just not professional.

Re:Meh.

[Orange Crush]

Agreed . . . mostly. Informal written communication doesn't carry inflection, tone of voice or body language. More formal writing can get around these with tasteful word choice, punctuation and structure, and lends itself to being interpreted in a more professional sounding tone. For intra-office instant messengers, smilies are hard to avoid using. People tend to IM very short questions, declaratory statements, etc--it's not appropriate (and won't be read any way) to send a book so they get your full meaning.

I'm also a bit of a smartass, so sprinkling in a few smilies can mean the difference between a laugh and them taking offense . . .

Re:Meh.

[SatanicPuppy]

I think sarcasm is by far the best reason to use an emoticon. Without one, you have to hope the person on the other end has a sufficiently refined sarcasm detector and won't get offended...Not something you want to count on in a work environment.

Re:Meh.

[billdar]

True. But, in a business environment, what you can get away with at the water cooler probably shouldn't be documented with a paper or digital trail....

Re:Meh.

[tb()ne]

But with bad news, it would help convey a sense of understanding or empathy. For example:

Mr. Johnson,

Your employment here at MegaCorp is terminated, effective immediately :-(

Director,
Human Resources

Re:Meh.

[imadoofus]

But with bad news, it would help convey a sense of understanding or empathy. For example:

Mr. Johnson,

Your employment here at MegaCorp is terminated, effective immediately :-)

Director,
Human Resources

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.

Ms. Feldman needs to STFU and GBTW.

[FatSean]

It's not always about YOU! It's not supposed to 'make you feel better' you addled-brained twat, it's supposed to clarify the state of mind of the sender! Would you have preferred that the sender put a big ol' grin in there? :D That said, I use emoticons for team communication, but not for formal documents. A yes/no email regarding a potential deal doesn't sound like a formal document to me.

Re:Ms. Feldman needs to STFU and GBTW.

[Fozzyuw]

it's supposed to clarify the state of mind of the sender!

( o )_( o ) ... opps, Freudian slip.

'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.'"

A future copy of The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, that slipped through a worm-hole, had this to say about Ms. Feldman...

Ms. Feldman at age 26, sued a former employee for sexual harassments due to lewd child-like graphical images, know at that time as "Emoticons". When a said former co-worker sent her an email with what he said was an arrow pointing at an important piece of information.

Claiming that was clearly a penis and not an arrow and that such combinations of characters show the posters state of mind, she did not much appreciate the overt suggestions thought that $10 millions dollars should make her feel much better.

Since then, all business replaced standard keyboards with interface boards that had specific words and generic phrases on them that only allowed a user to write back using those specific works, avoiding any further use of "emoticons" in the work place.

Coincidently, work productivity grew more than 500% as people stopped using Email at work.

Very true.

[Rob T Firefly]

This display of unprofessionalism is most upsetting. As a result, I've sent out a memo to the office banning the use of emoticons in work-related matters. It's written in Comic Sans MS.

Reintegrating RL Cues

[andrewd18]

Quite frankly, a large majority of what we understand in face-to-face conversation comes from body language. A smaller section are the vocal cues and intonations we pick up on. The smallest part of what we understand in a conversation is the actual words. Since e-mail is only words, and completely lacks the body language/intonation cues we're used to in real life, can you really blame someone for trying to add some of those cues back in?

Apparently yes. I, for one, welcome our "naïve tweens on AOL Instant Messenger finding out after-school soccer practice is canceled" overlords.

Re:Reintegrating RL Cues

[SatanicPuppy]

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.

Re:Reintegrating RL Cues

[langelgjm]

naïve tweens

Clever, working the "penis and testicles" emoticon into your last sentence, there. Thought no one would notice, did you? You sick bastard.

imagine my surprise

[friedman101]

After the market damage from last week my broker sent me this

IM IN UR PORTFOLIO
SHORTING UR GUGULS

wish i'd had that kind of cash

[conspirator57]

at age 25. Seriously, this is not a concern of the average person, and those who do have it as a concern are free to take their business to other brokers who are more reserved.

In IT

[LordBafford]

I am in the IT industry and internet slang and emoticons are pretty much the norm. Mainly in IM communication in out department. We use Jabber and in daily communication it is not unusual to have a smiley or lols thrown in the chatter. i think it all depends on what field you are in an the type of communication you are using. In an email generally these aren't accepted practice for business, but we do throw them in here and there for less formal occasions.

Re:In IT

[keeboo]

We use Jabber and(...)

Dear sir,

I formally inform you my apprecciation on your choice of IM systems.

Yours,
Keeboo Booboo

Ps.: :)

Not always about being "cute"

[Lockejaw]

One of the biggest flaws of text-only communication is that it doesn't include the "side-channel" of body language. A sentence sent as an instant message or email might fit well with many different tones of voice or facial expressions, and that can affect both the meaning and the likely reaction to it.

Re:Not always about being "cute"

[AndersOSU]

One of the biggest problems with text based communication is that people simply can't write well.

It is perfectly possible to convey humor, sarcasm, or irony with text, plenty of authors did so well before the electronics age.

That said, there are two solutions, if it is an informal and won't be distributed, include the damn smiley. If it's serious or formal (even if you're making a sarcastic comment to your boss,) take the time to make sure your email conveys what you want it to convey. If you can't express what you want in type don't.

The standard cop out that something doesn't translate well to text is bull. Jonathan Swift didn't complainabout how hard it is to write effective satire, nor does Garry Trudeau for that matter.

Sounds like a basketcase

[seanadams.com]

I wonder what the story is behind this Ms. Feldman, 25, and her multizillion dollar real estate deal?

My guess is she got herself real pumped up and greedy over what was probably only passing interest expressed by some buyer. If she's enough of a looney to get this bent out of shape over an "emoticon", then I wouldn't put it past her to grossly overstate the importance or her deal and the notion that it spontaneously fell through at the "23rd hour". I'm guessing her buyer may have been spooked for reasons that had nothing to do with the property...

+5 Insightful

[AKAImBatman]

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.

I wuv you!

[jtownatpunk.net]

A few years ago, I received an email filled with bouncing hearts from a person at a client company. WTF?!? I had no idea who this person was. I didn't recognize the name and knew I'd never communicated with her in any way in the past. I sent her the information she'd requested being careful to use the most neutral, professional prose I could muster. Then I looked at the code on her email and saw it was pulling images from one of those "free emoticons" sites. Turns out she'd installed a toolbar that added a bunch of crap to all of her outgoing emails. It was early February so it was adding valentine hearts to everything. Sure enough, after valentine's day, it switched to shamrocks. Apparently someone told her about it because the graphics disappeared before switching to bunnies and eggs.

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.

Informal usage only

[Pap22]

While I agree that it is no longer reserved for tweens who can't type, people need to realize that it is and always will be part of informal writing. To say "it is for expressing feelings, but via a text message" is stupid because we have WORDS to do that. Hence, using emoticons in formal writing is just your signal to the world that you have no writing skills. It doesn't just apply to emoticons:

Informal:
"wtfm8?"

Formal:
"Sir, I am absolutely flabbergasted that you would insult my intelligence with such incoherent dribble."

Re:Informal usage only

[dj_tla]

"Sir, I am absolutely flabbergasted that you would insult my intelligence with such incoherent dribble."

Formal:
"I should hope you mean drivel, good sir, for I am neither slobbering like a hound nor partaking in a rousing game of basketball!"

Informal:
"lol, lern 2 english"

So?

[iknownuttin]

It's not always about YOU! It's not supposed to 'make you feel better' you addled-brained twat, it's supposed to clarify the state of mind of the sender! Would you have preferred that the sender put a big ol' grin in there? :D

Even with the ":D", your words above can be taken as insulting. I don't know about you, but I've been insulted to my face while the insulter had this nice smile on their face.

Re:So?

[veganboyjosh]

what kind of slashdotter weighs 300 lbs?

oh, wait.

Re:So?

[teh_chrizzle]

a short one on an intramural team.

HAHA I HAVE YOU ALL UNDER MY CONTROL NOW!

[Broken scope]

(.Y.)

damnit /. This font doesn't do it right.

Re:HAHA I HAVE YOU ALL UNDER MY CONTROL NOW!

[kiddygrinder]

kirby on kirby action

Emoticons == The New Punctuation

[redelm]

After many years of dismissing emoticons as silly frippery, I have reluctantly concluded they can serve a function as important as punctuation: to convey intend tone in electronic messages which are often highly abbreviated and telegraphic.

Many flamewars have raged because someone missed humor or sarcasm.

OTOH, it is easy to overdo emoticons and they should only be used to clarify meaning. I can see use for smilies, but my imagination doesn't stretch so far as to conceive a situation that needs a frownie or others. When used redundantly, emoticons can be insulting: how else am I supposed to feel?

Medical conversations

[spineboy]

Somehow, I don't think that e-mail and emoticons will ever come into certain conversations in communication with patients.

Mrs. Smith, you have a tumor on your leg and need an amputation :-(

or Mr. Jones, your ESR is 10 :-)

I actually don't talk to patients with e-mail, as it is too hard to misconstrue, or patients take small facts and run with the idea. I have been using computers for 25+ years (Apple II -> Linux), so it's not a comfort issue. Physicians are mixed in this issue, some say it saves much time, others don't for the same reason as I do.