need information from you

Dear Co-worker,

You completely embarrass me every single time you write or speak on our program's behalf. Your malapropisms, mixed metaphors, and grammatical mistakes need to stop! For your own sake, and for the sake of our important work, please score some self-awareness.

Some helpful tips:

• Use a dictionary to discern Montessori from monastery. When you told me that your mother-in-law was visiting Montessoris in India, it was all I could do to keep from laughing in your face, and so I pretended I had not heard and asked you to repeat yourself. Please do your best to not tempt me like this.
• While you're at it, use the dictionary to look up the meaning of invasive. Sometimes we do give extensive written tests to the children we teach. But we are not medical personnel, and we do not enter their bodies in any way. Perhaps you should limit yourself to words that contain only one or two syllables.
• Listen carefully to idioms. When you say, "Let's dip our toes in the water and taste it out," it makes absolutely no sense. Better yet, skip the idioms and speak plainly. You really have a knack for trying to use the least illustrative and least appropriate expressions anyway.
• Read big words carefully. Drag your finger across the page or the computer screen if you have to. You have a problem seeing m and n at the end of words. For the last time, the word is pantomime, not pantomine. Maybe you've been using that smelly shampoo on your blond hair a little too long. (Oh sorry, was that mean or meam?)
• Notice the difference between someone saying, "Please get back to me at your earliest convenience," and the way you say, "I'll get back to you at my earliest convenience." One is considered polite (though slightly annoying), the other is rude, and you need to change your voicemail. I think you're thrown off by the word convenience. Remember the rule of thumb? You might try, "I'll get back to you as soon as I can."
• Help the people who read your e-mails by using descriptive subject lines. I know, and all of our associates know, that our program is named XYZ. There's no need for you to type XYZ in the subject line of every e-mail. Go ahead and use a few words to summarize the main idea of your message.
• While we're on the subject of subject lines, please consider how others might interpret your tone. Today, for instance, you wrote a terrible, error-ridden message to one of our national associates, and you titled it with a demanding "need information from you". Yesterday it was "Here you go....." Dear co-worker, all e-mails are presumably written to either give or request information. Find another way to summarize your thoughts. Also, you are not ee cummings. (That's a literary allusion. Be resourceful just this once and look him up.)
• Please use a wider variety of verbs, and preferably expressive ones. You overuse guide, outline, and enhance. Your favorite nouns (enhancement, instrument) are also turning stale. Ditto on needed and provided for, which you've managed to turn into adjectives.
• Do not end business letters/e-mails by signing Your friend. Business associates are not friends. Try a more professional valediction such as Sincerely, Thanks, or Thank you. Think of it this way: You really should thank people for reading your entire, awful messages. If you're in doubt, stick with what you know. Just type your name if nothing else comes to mind.
• Ah, names. You should spell other people's names correctly. I know you have the most generic, popular baby girl name from 1973. Your vanilla surname does nothing to distinguish you, either. But consider how people love the sight and sound of their own names. When you mess up spellings or pronunciations, you insult people just a little. And then you put the insulted person in the awkward position of having to correct your mistake. Take the time to look up people's names and address them correctly.
• To avoid sounding disingenuous, stop using overwrought words like thrilled and delightful in your business writing. The international space station crew was thrilled to receive new urine recycling equipment. You were mildly pleased when someone read your brochure. See the difference?
• Feel free to use conjunctions, prepositions, and articles when you write. The nouns you string together make no sense. Curriculum friendliness. Curriculum familiarity. Cost involvement. Cardiovascular behavior change. I may have missed something in physiology class, but I am fairly certain that my heart and blood vessels cannot willingly change their behavior. What are you really trying to say? One never really knows with you, and that's not o.k.
• We work with children. Go ahead and refer to them as children or kids. Every time you write or say the youth, it conjures up images from 1930's Germany. Let's face it -- you're only 35 years old and you live in a rural area. You wear teenager's clothing and listen to Top 40 radio, and you enjoy bar-hopping and reality TV for entertainment. You can safely get away with calling young people kids.
• When you're introducing us and our program to a group of future clients, please do not use this as an opening line: "You're lucky we're here." It's incredibly arrogant. Especially when you drive up to the clients' impoverished school in your $60,000 SUV.

Although I have enjoyed telepathically conveying apologies to our associates on your behalf for the past 18 months, I look forward to the day when you'll no longer offend or confuse them.

Sincerely,

Punk Tilly