To think that being told to make my work emails more “flowery” is ridiculous?

Flowery is a strange and hard to understand comment. Work emails don’t need to be flowery it’s not a novel.

I complained last year when a male colleague showed no interest in my ongoing long term project rattled off a last minute a list of ‘change this do this don’t do that’ in a email for something I’d worked hard on and was overall an excellent piece of work. He apologised and since has always put some appreciation in there too.

All that’s needed sometimes from whoever is sending the email is a shit sandwich - Hi XXX hope you’re having a good week. This looks great, especially the XYZ. Here are the points to address: list all the points here.
keep up the great work,
best wishes XXXX

If they want anything beyond this kind of ‘flowery’ then that sounds like a waste of work time tbh!

I'm similar to you OP and have heard similar. I think as long as we are not rude it shouldn't matter if we are direct.

Yanbu. I really like polite, concise emails. Saves me skimming through shite to find the point of the email.

I value my colleagues/clients time. As such I respect them enough not to waste it with effusive or flowery emails. I am polite, but direct and succinct with the information they need. I've had more than one person remark that they appreciate it.

Ha, I'm quite a flowery email writer ( or poster) - I feel taken aback when someone posts like 3 word responses . The poster who mentioned Germany and Denmark is correct - same with Netherlands - very 'to the point' - it can come across to Brits as rude- it's finding the happy medium

Hmmmm are you working for a primarily US based corporation.

Having moved from predominantly EU based colleagues to now working with US based colleagues there is a huge difference. In EU we are polite, respectful and clear with what's needed but theres little fluff. In US it's mainly fluff with a request in there somewhere. Same in meetings. It's taken some getting used to!

Maybe you just need to use please and thank you.

If you want a time for a. Action to be done explain it, eg I need it by first thing Friday rather than i want it on my desk on Friday.

Receiving this fluffed up email would annoy me to no end. Also, I would be tempted to say "no, it's not OK" as it lacks any sense of urgency. The first version is also no good. There has to be a middle ground... "Hi (name). Could you please kindly send me the report by Friday. Best Wishes (your name).

Do you think your boss objected to you directing the timeline?

When I need to be super fluffy or ultra diplomatic I get a colleague to review and usually heavily amend my draft 🤣

I may give chat GPT a go.

I cannot stand emails that are proloxic I just want bullet points of what is required & when so much more efficient.

I agree some people could do with being softer but flowery - no. I think there’s a place where direct is not polite - and when you get feedback suggesting you are in that place maybe it’s something you should consider.

I find our male managers far more polite and well mannered in general. Female managers often make a point of being tougher & less pleasant to make up for the gender gap - it’s all a bit cringeworthy.

I have to consciously think about fluffing mine up before I send. Every time.

I might write something like

"When are you going to send the report?"

And then I have to edit afterwards with

"Dear xxx

I hope you had a lovely weekend.

I was just wondering when you might be able to get that report to me, it would be very helpful if I could get it by Friday if that would be ok?

Thanks for your support with this.

Best wishes

Xxx"

Occasionally I forget the fluff and then have to send a quick email saying 'sorry, sent before I finished typing, what I meant was ......'

It would be so much more time efficient if we could just cut the crap! I know it sounds mean but quite frankly I don't give a shit how my colleagues weekend was and they don't care about mine so I wish we didn't have to ask all the time! Or tell them how much we hope they had a nice week/weekend/holiday etc... Just send the bloody report! ... Grrrrrr!!!

That's annoying.

I too write emails that are both polite and direct and I inferred that my then (young, female) boss found them a bit too direct.

Example- I would write, 'Hi Colleague. Please could you fill out the attached list and return by close of day? Best Regards, Beady.

Boss would write, 'Hi Colleague. Just a note to ask that if you have a spare minute, if you could please fill out the attached list and send it back to me when you get the chance? If there are any problems please let me know. Thanks a million!!!! Boss :)

I was taught (and think) that 'flowery' emails and using apologetic terms like 'just' are juvenile. Also, for good or bad, they're very gendered as men (in general) don't write like that. And I would imagine that men don't get called up on not being 'flowery' either.

I'm direct but polite. Ask your manager for a template e-mail of what is expected. It may just be a change in salutation at either end in which case you can change your e-mail and make the information in the middle as you usually would.

I had this feedback in my first real job, it completely baffled me at the time. I now realise I might be neurodiverse and the social etiquette sometimes eludes me. Why wouldn't I just be direct and say what I need to say? I didn't understand what I needed to do differently.

Since then I've tried a lot harder to make my communication more friendly, and actually been complimented on my ability to word things well. More recently chat gpt has been a complete game changer!

I find this kind of attitude though can make me inclined to give very blunt responses, particularly when someone is asking for me to go out of my way to explain something/assist them, usually something that has already been explained to them once before.

It’s tricky to advise without examples though.

I dislike the insincere enquiry too.

Im direct and prefer receiving directness back. There is a line though.

I think you’re probably right but I think they should do tbh

possibly this person is a sexist dickhead

If not this is probably advice about the impression you give of your feelings towards other people. I have a couple of colleagues who regularly reply to emails with things like “OK” or “That works” and it does give the impression that they are mildly pissed off or that they dislike the person they’re emailing. They don’t, it’s just their style but I’d be happy if they changed it.

I disagree because I've had similar feedback to the OP, and I feel pretty certain a male wouldn't received this sort of comment in the workplace.

I just recently took a training at work on communication and it was very clear that your email should be concise and to the point. They're supposed to be polite, for instance, you should say "good morning" or "good afternoon" or whatever, and then whatever the body of the email is and then "thank you" at the end. But not a lot of extra stuff.

It's a good job I'm self-employed these days as my first email after such a request might well look like:

Ooh, don't the roses look pretty.

It won't be possible by Thursday.

Look, a butterfly

If you want to make it a gendered aspect that's your prerogative.

But being too direct with anyone in emails can piss people off and lead to them not doing their best for you.