Wednesday, March 16, 2005

What's it all about?

Song title from Run DMC's Back From Hell album circa 1990. It was an ok album but definitely not in the league of Tougher than Leather and Raising Hell. Probably their last solid album although a weak case might be made for Down with the King. I'd have to argue though that Down with the King while containing a few nice tracks sort of saw Run complete the path to the dark side, from leaders to followers with tracks like "ooh what you're going to do" featuring lyrics like "Never let a punk get away with murder, Gun shots, gun shots, all you heard-a, What's up? What's up? What's the word up?" definitely not their finest moment.

Anyway what is it all about? I wasn't going to blog today. I took a few days off and I'm home chillin' out, maxin', relaxin', all cool and shootin' some b-ball outside of the school. Oh wait that's not me, lol.

Ok I'm home chilling, doing some more stuff around the house, getting some sleep, running errands, watching some movies, just letting the mind have some off time. Sometimes like Brand Nubian said you just have to 'Slow Down'.(Used to walk with a swagger, Now you simply stagger, From one spot on to the next spot on to the next spot on to the next). Sorry random lyric nothing to do with blog.

Tomorrow is the start of March Madness, probably the greatest day every year for basketball. 16 basketball games starting from about 12pm. Lose and go home! Its great! Mind you this year I have no idea who's winning, hell I haven't even looked at the matchups yet but I'm backing Wake, Illinois and NC and cheering wildly against the Blue Devils.

I wasn't really planning on blogging today, not much to write about but then I got a work related email this morning (yes must not check work emails when on vacation) and it got my mind going. First it was a tad annoying because I'm convinced the person is rather clueless and they waited until after I said I'm going on vacation to send me the mail but I'll let that slide because although I could help out they are flip flopping on issues and therefore I'm not doing jack till I go back out Monday. So them buss luck (outta luck).

What is weird about the email though is that lately the person has been sending me these work related emails with slang and short-form (internet style abbreviations) in them. Totally inappropriate for the business setting in my opinion. No not slang like 'what up dog?' or anything like that but just slang like we're internet buddies IM'ing. We're here dealing with formal work matters, and its not like the person is my colleague in the same office, we're different organizations, I've never met this person face to face, we're not pals, and we've only had maybe two or three phone conversations where I tried to be a paragon of professionalism so I don't know where this guy thinks that its ok to send me slang and short-form in emails.

I could stereotype and say its a sign of the yout dem just straight out of college and how dem not as professional but that would be a generalization and a disservice to all the great people who come out of school and are well trained and know how to be professional straight off the bat.

Yea it may not seem like a big deal and some folks have told me I'm probably being too ol skule about it but I'm sorry if I have higher standards. This naa goin mek it with me. Leave the slang for the blogs. :) I mean I've given up on receiving proper grammar in emails because lets face it good even adequate grammar is not something many folks are familiar with these days. Still its my opinion that you leave the slang-uage for when you're chatting in your personal conversations, hell I may even let some of the shortforms slide if it was an informal chat on the phone about business and I actually know you but don't bring it into serious written communication at work which could be used to document a project. Come on now! Judgment people judgment!

Ok that's my old man rant for the day. These kids nowadays.... lol

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well I fully agree with you. In this instance suppose this e-mail gets forwarded to the powers that be he is not going to understand the ebonics/shorthand.

Abeni said...

I get what you are saying.After all it is not even like you and the person are friends of such so the informality seems a bit strange.

summer of sam said...

aaaahhh. march madness makes me immensely happy...and unproductive.

Ka said...

have to agree with you,guy is being too familiar,tnot like you 2 are even buddies.
Enjoy your break,glad to see i'm not the only one happy about march madness.

Scratchie said...

I agree with you. Business is business and sometimes these messages need to form a part of permanent records. Ambiguity has no place in the workplace. Things are changing but we can't allow everything to slip.

Jdid said...

@nikki - exactly my point
@sunshine - thanks, yep instant communication has really changed society but at the same time i guess the older generation probably thought the same thing when airplanes and telephones came in. They were probably thinking 'how is this guy calling for my daughter in my day we had to go to her house and ask her father's permission to talk to her' lol
@abeni - yea it is strange cause he has no idea who i am
@summer - so you backing the illini? by the way what is an illini? my guess would be some indian tribe. never thought of that till just now
@katasha - thanks, so you catching the games tomorrow?
@scratchie - completely agree

bitchdoctrine said...

That's dumb on his part. Does the workplace look like MSN chat room? Damn, I know some people that write like that on their papers. Sending "ttyl" "smh" and "l8r" to their profs in the email. Eddiot ting dat!

Melody said...

Jdid, sometimes people at work try to hide grammar errors behind e-slang; they don't realize that they're creatin' other problems for themselves when they do that. Execs pardon poor grammar more easily than they pardon a lack ov professionalism--one is seen as a common skill defect, de other is seen as a personality defect--at least, based on what I've heard, it seems so. Enjoy your time off.

Anonymous said...

i agree. if anything, work email has to go to the extreme in being grammatically correct and clear in intent/meaning. no excuses.