Style

Why is style important in your current and/or future workplace?

I work in a software company on the HR team. We have about 250 employees in three different offices in the US, plus we have several remote employees working out of their homes. I personally send and receive about 70 e-mails each day, and many in the company would be happy to deal with only 70. We also use IM extensively to ask and answer questions. Many of these employees spend a large portion of their days writing, but style is probably not something they think about.

There are also some employees who do not even understand "correctness." Proper grammar and usage is something to which they do not pay close attention. :) I got an e-mail a couple of weeks ago that began, "I seen that we have some jobs posted on our website." It makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up as though someone just scraped their fingernails across a chalkboard. (Can you hear it?) One of my least favorite grammar faux pas is one I hear more and more often, and I fear usage (and over usage) will shape the acceptance of "correctness" on this one. I hear it every day: "I have went to.... " Ugh!

I sound like an "English teacher snob" I guess, but things like this are important to me. It's what I studied in school, and while I still make mistakes (of course) and I still have to make sure my objective/subjective usage is correct and that my pronouns agree in number, I like to be correct. It's fun to hang out in MOOs with others who can understand. :)

At work, "stylistic" issues come forth in e-mails where someone does not want to place ownership on a decision; we use passive voice, but we wouldn't call it "passive voice." Most employees probably don't know what "passive voice" is. They just don't want to state names.

Other concepts like conciseness and clarity are also important. When drafting, I often think about my audience and for some, I tell them how many questions I have an then I number those questions as well. Sometimes phrases and fragments speak better than complete sentences and well formatted paragraphs. I try to learn which employees skim and which ones really read e-mails.

I hadn't thought about these stylistic issues in my workplace before, but as I do, there are many others that I could mention. I wonder how about our communication with our clients. Are we always clear, consice, correct -- and ethical? Do employees word communications "just so" so the message is not "blatantly" unethical? Do we tell the whole story behind a situation? There are also issues of tone and levels of professionalism (or lack thereof) to consider as well. Interesting things to think about.