Death Becomes Her

I had the funniest moment today. I called up a client only to hear the words, “Abby is no longer with us.” Pause. He then proceeded to say, “She hasn’t passed away, she’s just not with our company anymore. I didn’t want you to think she was dead.” I was in a work mode, so I was a little slow on the uptake. However, he made me think how often we don’t clarify ourselves so that what we say can be taken in the right or wrong way. Misunderstandings were best played out in the immortal, “Three’s Company”. That crazy Jack Tripper. But, I digress.

Take an email for example. It has no tone, or personality. In our quest for quick, responsive communication, email has become almost rude. We ignore ‘em, don’t address people properly, open them and promptly forget them, place high importance priorities (!) on emails that aren’t urgent, misspell, lack the proper grammar or punctuation (spell check isn’t foolproof) and capitalize letters which are equivalent to SHOUTING! We know of “Road Rage”, but there’s also the wrath of the email that’s slowly terrorizing the countryside. No one has been killed so far on account of an email, but remember this caution and advice if you email colleagues and clients. Don’t take for granted picking up the phone or speaking face to face to clarify issues and make deals. ‘Cause maybe you’ll hear the same thing being said about you, “So-and-so is no longer with us.” Maybe we won’t think it’s terribly funny when our ex-company is saying the same thing about us.

Respectfully In Memoriam of John Ritter-1948-2003