Communication Skills

Funny Little Email-entine: Stay in Love and Employed

By February 13, 2008 No Comments

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Two minutes after you arrive at the office, the floral deliveries begin. The woman in the next cubicle receives long stemmed roses. You see a plant and balloons going to the guy in accounting. You nearly forgot! You make a note to pick up a bottle of wine and chocolates on the way home. But wait! Why wait? You can email your sentiments now. You instant message your desire, and follow it with an email and that photo of the two of you. Before leaving, you forward a joke the guy getting the balloons sent to you last week … after all it is Valentine’s Day and it might set the mood.
“Candy is dandy, but email isn’t,” says communications expert and author of How to Say It To Sell It, Sue Hershkowitz-Coore. “Don’t lose the love of your life and your job on the same day,” by IM’ing or emailing anything that anyone might interpret as crude, rude or lewd, she says. “The biggest challenge with email is how easy it is to forget that it’s a public, permanent record,” she adds.
“Think of a Valentine email like a tattoo,” Hershkowitz-Coore, known as “SpeakerSue” suggests. “Five to seven years later, that message will still exist on a server, somewhere. Will it still be cute, clever and cuddly?”

If the time element doesn’t scare you, consider this: What if your sweetheart’s IT department randomly monitors email? What if your Valentine clicks open the photo attachment just as the boss walks by? What if hidden readers forward the email to the rest of the team? “Nobody thinks it will happen to them but we don’t plan on being in a car accident either!” she warns.

Whatever you do, says SpeakerSue, don’t “sip and send”. Drinking and email just don’t work. Whether you’re communicating with the love of your life, or the boss you can barely tolerate, writing after a couple of beers is just email-iness!

Final Valentine email etiquette advice? “Use email to confirm the time of your date, not to describe it,” says SpeakerSue.

www.SpeakerSue.com

Any Valentine bloopers to share?

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