Support NeoGAF

[Taxexemption]

I really didn't get along with my boss at my last job. I feel like I had some legitimate grievances, but I think her email etiquette may have been part of the issue. Often times if I asked a simple question she would respond with something like

"Yes!!!!!!"

or

"No!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

or even

"Okay!!!!!!"

and my take from this was that she was pissed and thought I was being stupid. I have a new job, and it's mostly an older crowd, and they all do this. My boss does it, my co-workers do it. It seems to me that upper management are the only people I work with who do not do this. Previously I understood using a bunch of exclamation points to be yelling, and that it expressed being upset or frustration, but some of my co-workers include these exclamation points all over the place in response to almost any question asked over email. Can someone explain this? Personally, if I was in charge I would be telling people not to do this as to me it comes off that people are constantly pissed about everything.


I think there is some chance that some of my co-workers are made legitimately upset by me asking process questions that they think are obvious, but using lots of exclamation points in emails comes up so frequently that I think this is age related and that old people type like that because they think it means something completely different.

 

[JareBear: Remastered]

You tell me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I work with a bunch of old people and have never witnessed this phenomenon.

Neither have I. Even when working in more relaxed environments, there was always a minimum expectation of some sort of "professionalism" even when it comes to e-mails.

 

[Mossybrew]

I work with a bunch of old people and have never witnessed this phenomenon.

 

[Richard Packer]

My boss is a 60+ year old man and he always fills all his messages with emoticons. Which I find hilarious because he's a massive jerk in person.

 

[teezzy]

 

[Taxexemption]

My boss is a 60+ year old man and he always fills all his messages with emoticons. Which I find hilarious because he's a massive jerk in person.

My dad does this, and sometimes if you ask him questions or tell him something he will just send you an emoticon in reply, and he uses a lot of weird ones that you have to lookup what it's supposed to mean. This has caused lots of confusion, we had an announcement that a relative was in an accident and he sent a weird crying face that looked like a laughing out loud face. Everyone just looked at the emoticon and assumed that my dad was laughing about the guy getting in an accident, and a lot of people were pissed at him for awhile over it.

 

[jshackles]

I had a co-worker who used to sign off on nearly every email with "F U". It wasn't like in their signature or something, they just wrote it out like that. I thought they were telling me to fuck off.

Turns out that was just their shortcode for "Please follow up with me on this". ("Follow Up", I guess?) Made things pretty uncomfortable until I asked them what their problem was with me, and they were very confused as to why I wasn't returning their emails when they specifically requested I follow up with them.

 

[GnomeChimpsky]

My dad does this, and sometimes if you ask him questions or tell him something he will just send you an emoticon in reply, and he uses a lot of weird ones that you have to lookup what it's supposed to mean. This has caused lots of confusion, we had an announcement that a relative was in an accident and he sent a weird crying face that looked like a laughing out loud face. Everyone just looked at the emoticon and assumed that my dad was laughing about the guy getting in an accident, and a lot of people were pissed at him for awhile over it.

 

[Madevil]

Define old people compared to your age.

 

[Taxexemption]

Define old people compared to your age.

Older than 55. Most of the people I'm talking about are in their 60's.

 

[Riven326]

Because old people are weird.

 

[Nixonomics]

Improper use of ellipses is what I see most commonly.
Like.... how can i emphasize the pause....between these two phrases... with my limited understanding of writing and punctuation.

 

[Madevil]

Older than 55. Most of the people I'm talking about are in their 60's.

Thanks man. It's an interesting issue. My experience is kind of all over the place from yours. From teens up to early nineties really rip into the over exclamation shit In my experience.
Interesting stuff.

 

[Yoshi]

Using multiple exclamation marks does not mean writing like a teenager, but writing like a fool. That is not the same thing.

 

[Tesseract]

mind and age are normally distributed

one goes, the other goes

 

[HellforLeather]

Thats totally lit fam!!!!!!!!!!

I had a co-worker who used to sign off on nearly every email with "F U". It wasn't like in their signature or something, they just wrote it out like that. I thought they were telling me to fuck off.

Turns out that was just their shortcode for "Please follow up with me on this". ("Follow Up", I guess?) Made things pretty uncomfortable until I asked them what their problem was with me, and they were very confused as to why I wasn't returning their emails when they specifically requested I follow up with them.

Yeaahhh right. That dude was totally saying "fuck you". You gonna let him get away with that shit? Time to keep it real.

 

[jshackles]

Thats totally lit fam!!!!!!!!!!




Yeaahhh right. That dude was totally saying "fuck you". You gonna let him get away with that shit? Time to keep it real.

"that dude" was actually a 70 year old woman. Might have still been a stealth diss though.

 

[King of Foxes]

 

[nush]

Older than 55. Most of the people I'm talking about are in their 60's.

Agreed thier email etiquette can often be non existent. I think a lot of them believe it's just the same as texting and I've been on email chains where it's clear everyone is just using it like a really inefficient chat program. Topic of discussion no longer matches the subject header and somewhere in all those back and forth short messages is something you are supposed to,have noticed becuse "I sent and email about it". Yeah, one fucking line in a completely different conversation in 50 emails.

 

[Rentahamster]

IKR!!

LOLOL

 

[-Arcadia-]

I've noticed a lot of old people on Facebook doing this. They're... fond of exclamation marks. Some kind of strange cultural thing, from the days of writing physical letters, maybe?

Not so much professionally, but I can see where it would happen.

 

[neobiz]

I'd rather deal with over excited twats than the talk to type crowd

 

[Woo-Fu]

If they can actually type then I'd say they're not actually that old.

 

[DESTROYA]

When you stop typing like

"r u mad" and stop shortening words for absolutely no reason because you are to lazy to type the extra 2 letters in said word...Deal?

 

[jshackles]

If they can actually type then I'd say they're not actually that old.

Some of us "old people" learned to type on a typewriter though.

 

[triplestation]

i know

sad!

 

[n0razi]

There's an inverse U curve when it comes to intelligence... babies get smarter till they hit adulthood and then it goes back down...

 

[lock2k]

I really didn't get along with my boss at my last job. I feel like I had some legitimate grievances, but I think her email etiquette may have been part of the issue. Often times if I asked a simple question she would respond with something like

"Yes!!!!!!"

or

"No!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

or even

"Okay!!!!!!"

and my take from this was that she was pissed and thought I was being stupid. I have a new job, and it's mostly an older crowd, and they all do this. My boss does it, my co-workers do it. It seems to me that upper management are the only people I work with who do not do this. Previously I understood using a bunch of exclamation points to be yelling, and that it expressed being upset or frustration, but some of my co-workers include these exclamation points all over the place in response to almost any question asked over email. Can someone explain this? Personally, if I was in charge I would be telling people not to do this as to me it comes off that people are constantly pissed about everything.


I think there is some chance that some of my co-workers are made legitimately upset by me asking process questions that they think are obvious, but using lots of exclamation points in emails comes up so frequently that I think this is age related and that old people type like that because they think it means something completely different.

Both are brain damaged.

 

[Dark Star]

 

[Bullet Club]

Wurd 2 ur mutha, homie!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[BigBooper]

Just be sure to add a half dozen question marks when you ask a question. Get ahead of it that way.

 

[haxan7]

That's all students deserve

 

[plushyp]

IKR!!

LOLOL