How to nice-ify work emails?

February 3, 2020 6:04 PM

I'm nice in person but my work emails are mean. How can I fix my tone?

People say I'm a nice guy (seriously, I was voted 'nicest person' in high school and people comment on my politeness in person). However, I've received feedback that my work emails come off mean. I'm afraid people consider me an 'email warrior' (a dick on email, but kind in person). I'd really like to improve this. Got any recommended books/articles or actionable advice?

I do operations work (stressful) in an open office (frequent interruptions). I interact often with others on many 'fun' tasks such as:
- Doing a root cause analysis and identifying correction actions (CYA and blame game).
- Driving improvements with partner vendors (highlighting problems).
- Figuring out what systems aren't working and then alerting IT to fix it before the clients notice.
- Reverse-engineering the ERP to figure out how it works when behavior is unexpected, since it was a rushed custom setup with little documentation and frequent changes as things grow.
- Managing a small team and guiding them to do similar stuff until we can automate away their manual work.

Upon reflection I feel like the nature of the work won't really be that different if I change to a different company, at least not in this industry. So I'd like to make the most of the challenge and learn to communicate more collaboratively with others. At the very least, I'd like to do no harm with my emails. Previous answers to similar asks like this are really useful, but I'm still on the hunt for more info. I'm looking for both quick hot tips and deeper stuff to really change my behavior.

posted by mannermode to Work & Money (33 answers total)

This is going to sound ridiculous, but I swear you can mitigate this problem to a significant extent simply by peppering your emails with one or two exclamation points.
posted by eponym at 6:18 PM on February 3, 2020 [62 favorites]

It would be really useful if you could share some of what others have critiqued. It's hard to know how to help you change your tone if we don't really know what your tone is. Is it brusque? Short? Demanding?

One quick fix is to start emails with, "Hi Name," instead of "Dear Name," or just, "Name,". I'm a person who is always on high alert to people being mad at me and emails starting out with "Hi" almost always put me at ease instantly.
posted by cooker girl at 6:27 PM on February 3, 2020 [8 favorites]

Hi, mannermode! We have some tense moments/rapid days here too.

Exclamation points and the occasional :) really help. Every now and then throw in a fun/chatty response after resolving the purpose of the email thread.

Starting with a greeting and a defusing opening sentence, if you’re currently not, helps too.

Whatever office etiquette breaches these may inflict are outweighed by the friendliness, in my opinion! :)
posted by michaelh at 6:31 PM on February 3, 2020 [14 favorites]

I use this tip because I also have a very terse email tone.

Grammarly has an extension that can be put into Gmail called Tone Detector. It puts a little emoji in the corner of your email draft and it analyzes your words to see if you're coming across as friendly, formal, angry, etc. It's not 100% accurate it's pretty good, and it helps me step back and think about how my emails appear to someone else.

It's free. Even if you don't use Gmail at work you can still compose work emails in Gmail and then copy and paste them into whatever system your employer uses. It's been really helpful for me!
posted by christinetheslp at 6:33 PM on February 3, 2020 [7 favorites]

Always use please and thank you.

When you’re assigning a task, ask instead of demand, even when it’s not really a request. So, “would you please...” instead of “I need you to...”

When you notice or hear about someone handling your request well, make note of that: “thanks, good call on your part” or “great job doing the XYZ, thanks again.”
posted by sallybrown at 6:33 PM on February 3, 2020 [11 favorites]

Polite isn't good enough in writing. The IRS sends very polite letters. Polite writing reads as formal, and formal can be conveyed sternly.

What you want to convey in an email is friendliness. Friendly emails sound nice.

When you're writing an email, pretend like you're having the conversation with a friend over lunch.

Like:

Hi Mary, sorry to hear you're having trouble with the program. Thanks for letting me know! We need to troubleshoot...can we chat about how you got to that point? I think it might be this or this, but we'll need to check with IT to be sure. Thanks!

Now me? I am not very nice. I have never been accused of being the nicest. But I send conversational emails like this all day long about the most mundane crap and no one ever realizes I'm swearing at them for being dumb from the other side of the screen. Just because it's work doesn't mean you can't be chatty with it. It really helps lighten folks up and win them over.
posted by phunniemee at 6:36 PM on February 3, 2020 [38 favorites]

Can you share an example email you've sent recently that you know came off badly (identifying information redacted)? We could offer alternate ways to phrase things. You are also welcome to MeMail me privately. I am the person in my office who helps revise emails and messages to clients and other team members for this exact reason. Glad to help if I can -- this is a tricky thing for sure.
posted by Kitchen Witch at 6:36 PM on February 3, 2020 [1 favorite]

Also, for the love of God, please be extremely mindful of using emojis, emoticons, and exclamation points when sending emails. They can make you seem snide unless you have an established rapport with recipients.
posted by Kitchen Witch at 6:38 PM on February 3, 2020 [7 favorites]

Deeper stuff: You might be interested in reading the chapter on typographical tone of voice in Gretchen McCulloch's Because Internet.
posted by MonkeyToes at 6:41 PM on February 3, 2020 [9 favorites]

Do you have any work friends who can nicen up your emails for you? I have a couple that I use as a second pair of eyes to get feedback and soften my tone.
posted by rabbitrabbit at 6:46 PM on February 3, 2020 [2 favorites]

Say nice things at the top and bottom of your email, not just pleasantries but stuff about the work. Just quick things.
posted by vunder at 6:47 PM on February 3, 2020 [3 favorites]

It can also be okay to be direct and no nonsense. I mean, it depends on who the feedback came from - certainly if it was your boss then you need to address it. But just as an example, I have a new job where I'm working with an old friend who has always been very direct and blunt. When we worked together at an old job and she was in her 20s I thought she'd soften over time. 20 years later and she is just as blunt and direct and it works for her. But she is also kind to a fault. It's just how she communicates, and she's good at her job so people deal with it. That said, she does occasionally ask us to look over an important email just to make sure she's not going to piss anyone off.

And then there was another lady I worked with who everyone loved and who was so sweet but who didn't want to upset anyone ever. Her emails were paragraphs upon paragraphs of prevarication, and it was hard to figure out what her point was sometimes.

I don't think suddenly peppering your emails with exclamation points and emoji is going to do what you want, but the advice above to phrase things as requests (even when they aren't really) is a good one. Also please and thank you, using friendly salutations and closings, and pointing out others' contributions.
posted by cabingirl at 6:49 PM on February 3, 2020 [3 favorites]

Saying “please” can come as rude (“Can you please send me the document”).
posted by JenMarie at 6:53 PM on February 3, 2020 [2 favorites]

Here’s how to do it: don’t presume at all that the person you’re writing to has to do this task (even if it’s their f job to do it). Pretend they are someone to whom YOU owe a favor and then you’re asking them to do something. This will subtly impact your phrasing so that you are truly asking the person if they can do something, not ask-telling them, which is basically bossing them around.

Similarly, be genuinely curious about things as opposed to close-ended. I’m wondering about your thoughts on... I noticed XYZ, did you notice this too? And so on.
posted by St. Peepsburg at 7:01 PM on February 3, 2020 [7 favorites]

Save your email as draft, come back to it an hour or two later with fresh eyes.

If I'm doing any kind of writing on a topic that could cause offense, often what I think is sounding "clear and direct" actually reads as jerk-ish. Reading it again after a break helps to view it as someone else would, and I can change things to more closely match my intent.
posted by kaefer at 7:05 PM on February 3, 2020 [1 favorite]

I am a very blunt person who feels like I am perfectly communicating but people think my emails/texts can be rude/mean. I feel like this is because I am not spending time/energy on the social parts of communicating over email, mainly because I don't require it (and don't really like it) and so gloss over its importance for others. It's important to others!

I have a form to my emails now that seems to work better, and I vary it a little depending on my status relative to the person I am speaking with (that is, do I work for them, do they work for me, are we friends, do they like me okay, are they likely to be frustrated, am I likely to be frustrated). My loose outline is this. I know it can sound mercenary, I don't know what to say about that, it works. I send a LOT of email for the work I do.

Hi $NAME (can vary formality here but using names is good)

REASON FOR MESSAGE ("Thanks for letting me know about that bug" or "Here's an email telling you how to do the thing" or "I need some help with a project") along with something that is basically acknowledging that they are human and not a robot ("Greetings from snowy Vermont" or "Hope you had a great weekend"). This can be the opener too but basically a two-sentence opener so someone can figure out what he email is about. Like with cabingirl above, make it so people can clearly get what you're after.

EXPLANATION OF REASON. This should be shortish and anything more than a few sentences should be bullet points. People are busy. I think of it as the "here's what happens next" section but also acknowledging that you are working together, in whatever way you are. Should be friendly, they are helping YOU by basically getting back to you or continuing to have this interaction with you.

SUMMARY OR ASK. Wrap it up in some clear way and if you're going to be going somewhere uncomfortable, this is when to really make sure you're acknowledging this. I have been helping people learn new software lately, I think it's important that I 1) acknowledge it's a bit of a pain 2) I am here to help them and no question is too dumb or small

SIG/THANKS. In some way indicate that you are grateful. You don't have to be a toad about it but just "Thanks for your time" or something similar.

A few things that I perceive as unfriendly that I don't think the people who sent them think of this way

- command line dumps (literally do not send me code unless I asked "Send me the code?")
- starting off emails with "hey" or just jumping in to the middle of an explanation
- sending me a link that answers the question without framing it with words. My usual technique for this is "Hey I think this question is answered in the FAQ I wrote, could you check it out here (link) and if not, let me know and we'll get it working for you?"" instead of "Read FAQ here:(link)"
posted by jessamyn at 7:17 PM on February 3, 2020 [20 favorites]

Something like "Please perform X task" seems rude from a peer or subordinate, less so from a boss. "Can you help me with this?" or "Do you have time to take a look at x today?" acknowledges that you can't command them to do the thing and allows them to feel like they're doing you a favor and helping you out, which is generally a pleasant feeling.

Acknowledging whatever's going on in their lives, if it's big and if you happen to know about it. "Hope you had a good vacation!/are recovering from your knee injury/are getting around okay in the snow up there. Can you take a look at x?"

Closers like "Hope that makes sense - just let me know if you have any questions or would like to discuss" can also help.
posted by bunderful at 7:28 PM on February 3, 2020

It can take a long time to add softening language that strikes just the right tone. And I understand you are rushed. For example when sending these emails: alerting IT to fix it before the clients notice.

Try to identify certain types of email you frequently need to send, and take some extra time to write the softening language needed. Then save those canned messages with the social niceties queued up, ready to cut and paste new details into.

Hyperbole like "You're the best!" and "Thank you so much, this is extremely helpful, you have no idea!" comes off as insincere to me, but my co-workers like it, so I copy-paste.
posted by Former Congressional Representative Lenny Lemming at 7:29 PM on February 3, 2020 [5 favorites]

No clue if you’re doing this, but if you’re not someone’s supervisor, you can’t tell them what to do (even if your job actually is to tell them what to do.) So instead of “Dear Lee, xyz is wrong and you need to fix this bug. Best, mannermode”, something like “Hi Lee, thanks for this. We ran the check for you and found just a couple of minor issues: [describe issue.] Let me know if I can give you more info to help you fix it. My best, mannermode.”
posted by kapers at 7:51 PM on February 3, 2020 [3 favorites]

I’m wondering about your thoughts on... I noticed XYZ, did you notice this too? And so on.

IME this phrasing may come off as passive and overly wordy. (Not criticizing you, St. Peepsburg.) My engineering leads are more likely to say something like this:

"I noticed X, which may be contributing to or causing Z. We may need to do ____ to fix this. What would you recommend?"

Kapers' sample script is the tone I personally use. I would remove "just" in that particular example, since that can sound patronising.
posted by Kitchen Witch at 8:11 PM on February 3, 2020 [2 favorites]

In person, close to 90% of communication is non-verbal. Your niceness likely shines through in your tone and body language and gives people a context for your more ambiguous content.

I mention this because I don’t think that adding "please" and "thank you" alone is going to solve the problem. You’ll have to be careful with your emails, preferably reading them through as if you were the other person before you press send. That can be onerous but if you keep in mind that you’re working with close to a 90% disadvantage it can help you stick with it.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 8:15 PM on February 3, 2020 [2 favorites]

Ah, the friendly work email register. It's a tough one! And it will to some extent vary by workplace & industry (as seen from the responses above). Can you get the person/people who gave you the feedback to point you to some "nicer" examples from people at your level with a similarly stressful & time-sensitive job? I think those will be your best guide.

Some habits I've picked up over the years to soften things a bit:
- If there's any doubt about whether I'm contacting the right person for the task, acknowledge that and ask to be redirected if I should be talking to somebody else.
- If I want somebody else to go through steps they've almost certainly tried (e.g. power cycling or rebooting), acknowledge that they've already done it but say that I have to start at the beginning for my own clarity. (In other words, never let on that I think they might not have actually done that.)
- If I'm not their boss, ASK even if I'm asking them to do their damn job.
- If I am the boss, ask anyway, and a brief reason helps even if they know why, especially if it's an annoying task. For example: "Hi team, it's time for me to compile the monthly report. Please send in your individual contributions by 3 PM today." is a lot softer than just "Don't forget: monthly report contributions are due by 3 PM today." I mean, they know! It happens every month! But the first one emphasizes that we all do work to get the report done.
- Accept that this is going to take a few more words, and sometimes will seem unnatural. That's why it's tough: because of course if you're too wordy, nobody will read your overly long email.

On that note, I clearly should stop.
posted by inexorably_forward at 8:54 PM on February 3, 2020 [3 favorites]

I added a rule to my Outlook that delays sending outgoing messages for one minute. It's been fantastic as a way of giving me an extra chance to realize I could have been nicer or had a more gentle tone. I have that one extra chance to click in there and tone myself down.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 9:27 PM on February 3, 2020 [2 favorites]

Nth-ing that "could you please" can easily be read with a negative tone. For example:

> Geoffrey: "@pwnguin Could you please acknowledge the PagerDuty alert and work on resolving it? Thanks"

Reads to me like the sender is exasperated that pages are being ignored, even though please and thanks were technically present. You can almost hear the eyeroll in your head.

Probably the most useful thing you can do is frame things as journalistic questions. Who/what/when/where are all fine. In code review for example, instead of rejecting a PR with a 'This code doesn't work' you can reject it while asking a question: 'how was this tested?' Just be wary of why, especially around negative results. I.e. not a great question:

"Why did you reboot the server?"

The other thing you need to do, as a manager, is practice giving positive feedback. Every manager has control over their direct's access to food water and shelter, so people think more deeply about those interactions. Every negative piece of feedback you send the relationship thermometer shifts towards threat, and it takes more positive feedback to undo the relationship damage.

Like, think about it: your entire framing of the question is focused around negative outcomes. Outages, missed alerts, unreliable vendors. It's common among SRE to focus on negative outcomes to achieve more nines, but it also means you only ever talk to people when they 'done goofed.'
posted by pwnguin at 12:10 AM on February 4, 2020 [3 favorites]

I love this thread and I'm learning cool actionable tips. I don't have advice of my own, but I have to second Kitchen Witch's caution above:

Also, for the love of God, please be extremely mindful of using emojis, emoticons, and exclamation points when sending emails. They can make you seem snide unless you have an established rapport with recipients.

I had a co-worker that used to write the most passive-aggressive things, full of backhanded compliments, thinly veiled criticism and other bullshit, always under cover of polite language, and then attempt to defuse them with smileys. It was in fucking riating and fucking rustrating and it killed me that I didn't have the tools to deal with it at the time.

I know you wouldn't do this kind of thing, but it's important to take extra double care that nobody can misinterpret your writing as doing it. I just got a cortisol rise just from remembering, and that was 20 years ago.
posted by kandinski at 12:42 AM on February 4, 2020 [2 favorites]

What works for me is writing the email and going over it later to make it more conversational. Sometimes it's shocking to me how severe my emails can sound before I do this.

I always start with the greeting of Hi XXXX, because someone started doing that to me years ago and I liked it.

I also find that I tend to not use contractions as much when writing. Going back and changing will not to won't or I will to I'll and etc. helps to keep the email more friendly feeling.
posted by newpotato at 3:57 AM on February 4, 2020 [2 favorites]

I think maybe you'd get better feedback from people who are actually reading your emails?

But anyway, I just wanted to add a counterpoint: I work in a similar, but not-as-high-stakes environment, and it would drive me nuts if I were getting flowery, "hi, what a lovely day, I really do hope you're enjoying it, by the way could you possible maybe take a slight peek into this somewhat uncomfortable nuisance when you get the chance, it would be a lot of help blah blah blah" emails all day. I have to admit I'm definitely Ask Culture all the way, but being clear and direct has its benefits.

I mean, yes, of course, use "please" and "thank you" and be polite, but (depending on your audience) maybe there's no need for a complete change.

And of course, do NOT be passive-agressive, snarky, accusatory and/or full of bullshit.
posted by gakiko at 5:30 AM on February 4, 2020 [4 favorites]

Office cultures vary. You might ask some people who've given you this feedback for examples of emails that don't read as mean. If they have the time and interest, maybe discuss what the key differences are. It might be as simple as an adjustment to your greeting or closing.

(If the feedback is from a boss or mentor, and it was important enough to them to bring it up, I should think it would be important enough to spend the time helping you understand what adjustments to make).
posted by bunderful at 5:22 AM on February 5, 2020

I'm in IT operations, and I try for a tone that's sort of pleasantly affable when emailing peers. Conversational. I do tend to hedge a bit - "it looks like" and "here's what I'm seeing" rather than "this must be, this absolutely is". Partly it's to come off a bit softer, and partly because I want to try and bring them along to my conclusion, and I feel like "here's what I'm seeing - the monkeys are taking a long time to get their bananas every day and our monkey transit latency numbers are up. Dropping that will probably help with the monkey response time, so I'm looking at ways to do that"

There's a risk of getting too rambling. When things get long-winded and complicated, I'll often try to put a quick summary at the top and then longer explanations below. Like, "Hi there - Short form: I think we have to move the bananas closer to the monkeys. Long form: [explanation of monkey transit times and banana growth curves backing my suggestion]"

More specific to ops - one thing I try to do is notice when I'm about to use words like "actually" and "technically" because those are often indicators that I'm about to sound like an asshole. "Just" is in there, too, as in "can you just" or "I just want to." Also, be very very careful using contrafactual framing like "why didn't you?" - much better to think of things in terms of "what did we know at the time, and what led us to the actions we did take." Assume that people you're dealing with are making reasonable decisions in a crisis based on the information available to them at the time. There's a lot of discussion of 'blameless post mortems' in incident response these days, and you might be able to take some things from that. Example presentation from a recent rubyconf.
posted by rmd1023 at 5:56 AM on February 5, 2020 [4 favorites]

So, it's a slightly snarky answer, but 35 People Share Passive Aggressive ‘Gibberish Phrases’ That Almost Everyone Uses In Their Workplace has been shared around recently, and its the first thing I thought of to help answer this questions. There's a lot of truth in that click-baity article - They're nicer phrases that really have less-nice undertones that most everyone understands, but the actual wording isn't perceived as aggressive. It highlights a certain informally agreed upon workplace language that doesn't offend.

That said, its a very fine line between sounding too passive and wishy-washy vs direct and clear but not bossy. Do you have any specific examples you wouldn't mind the hive-mind giving a once over?

Myself personally, I tend to overuse emoji. I need to stop :D
posted by cgg at 7:50 AM on February 5, 2020 [1 favorite]

I write the email I want to write first. Then before I hit send I go back and add the italics:

Hey Joe!

Hope you had a fun weekend and are enjoying this weather. (Enjoyed the concert/your year is off to a good start/are looking forward to the weekend/are feeling better/whatever nicety is applicable, with as much detail as I know about them).

[Email I wrote originally, usually very terse and business-like].

Thanks again for your help with this! It's really appreciated. Feel free to shoot me a text if you have any Qs.


I only skip this with people I am genuinely, get a beer, hangout on Saturday, friends with. Or coworkers that I am not out-of-work friends with but can tell that we have super deep trust and mutual affection developed.

Also, never underestimate the power of moving off of email. Walk over to their desk, call or text them, send them a Slack/chat...email is hard.
posted by amaire at 1:08 PM on February 6, 2020 [2 favorites]

Several people have done this in their example text, but I don't think anyone has called it out specifically: Lean very hard into the first person plural. It's not that "you" did something wrong or need to do something differently, for instance; it's that "we" need to make some changes. This shouldn't keep you from asking people what you need from them specifically, but when you frame it as a team effort it tends to keep people from getting their backs up. (I frequently play email-nicener for my curt-leaning boss and this is one of my big tricks.)
posted by babelfish at 4:21 PM on February 6, 2020 [2 favorites]

Response by poster: OP here - woah! thank you all! This has been super helpful so far. Been tinkering with some of the techniques and ideas and so far so good, will be diving deeper into it to try different things and see how it works, appreciate all the insight and inspiration!
posted by mannermode at 2:51 PM on March 1, 2020