The Long and Short of it All

Some of my co-workers attended an “E-mail Writing Course.” Fascinated by a title that seemed nothing less than a complete waste of time, I asked about it.

Although, in and of itself, asking about it was not a waste of time; listening to the description probably drained enough life force to shorten my life span by two years. 45 minutes for two years is not a good trade. Mark that in your little book of life’s lessons. Page 13.

According to this class, people just don’t have time to read e-mails. That is probably because they spend too much time scanning for viruses, filtering through spam and typing passwords, but who am I to judge? The instructor taught that we should shorten our e-mails to give our corporate managers and officers summaries of the necessary facts and not bog them with details.

This is something I’ve always encouraged my coworkers attempt. Not really to save the managers time. More because the mangers really don’t know enough to understand the details, so why bother typing them.

This lead to a discussion of some e-mail messages composed that day. Where they too short? Just right? Did it depend on the recipient? As the conversation progressed, I longed more and more for a quick death.

We did come to the conclusion that the instructor of the “E-mail Writing Course” should take a “Course Course,” In this Course Course,” I will explain that employees doing all the work don’t have time to sit in a course all day learning (essentially) how to talk down to corporate officers at a level they can comprehend. I will teach that we should shorten our classes to give employees more time to not be in pointless classes.

I, of course, am NOT talking about the management where I work. I’m just going by what friends say about where they work. The people I work for a real good smart!