Colleague's fluffy language!

[Mk9821]

Just received an out of office reply to an email sent to my colleague.
"currently at this present time I'm not at work abd not going to be back in the office till xxx".
She never gets straight to the point, why to some people use overly fluffy and round the houses ways of saying something that can be summarised in a few words?

Why do you care? Bizarre that her writing a few extra words to what you would annoy you. I find the idea that we should all sound the same in emails sad and irritating.

And to the people who don't like those who don't get to the point- You'd loathe my emails, they frequently read back as a bit waffley and I regularly (I'm guessing) use myself and yourself in what I think people here think is the wrong context.

However, I write quickly. People get the message that I'm trying to get across. There's a few more words than some people want. I can't see the issue. But small-minded people who don't like me much probably sneer.

Many women are conditioned this way, OP. See also language like

‘I just wanted to check’

’I was just wondering’

’Can I just check’

’Would it be ok if’

’I wondered if’

’Would it be possible’

Women use language like this much more than men, to be liked. They really don’t need to.

😂

No one would write that waffle!

the rest ‘so p**s off’ didn’t need typing!

There is a brilliant book called Wankernomics that came out this Christmas and has some very funny observations on corporate speak. It’s half price in Waterstones at the moment. Treat yourself to it OP!

Clunky but better than the nauseous OOO some people at my work write, along the lines of

“ I am taking a much needed holiday with my family, making memories and enjoying some down time!” or possibly worse “I am away this week delivering impactful work to our clients and changing peoples lives as a result!”

So cringe! Wouldn’t mind so much if it was some funky marketing agency but it is a very corporate global management consultancy firm!!

People write like this because they think it makes them sound intelligent. It actually has the opposite effect.

This. I would read that from the OP and just think that person was thick.

I have a client that writes like that. I think he thinks it’s more formal sounding. But he’s a nice guy and way more appreciative of my work than many others so I do an inner eye roll at the language and move on.

Being unable to write properly is absolutely fairly standard.

Keeping it simple and without the repetition of currently and at this present time.

Haha. I know. It's appalling. Like they think it sounds really formal, and they somehow have acquired some elevated social standing?!

Dumb fucks. 🤣

I’m SO using this for my next out of office response 😂😂😂

A better way would be to say
I am out of the office until [date]. If your issue is urgent please contact [name] in my absence.

It’s clumsy English. But as long as people can understand the thrust of the message and the typo “adn” is changed does it matter?

I am with you OP. I don't call a spade a horticultural gardening implement.

It could be much, much fluffier - and there is only one typo in the entire message.

I think some people at work must be on a mission to fit as many spelling mistakes, their's, theres, yours and pluralistic apostrophes (or should that be 'apostrophe's'?) in every out of office and auto acknowledgement message.

My external ones say something along the lines of 'xxx office is closed until 9am Monday 15th Whatever. In an emergency, please contact emergencyemail@ or telephone 020receptionnumber'. My internal ones say 'Back 9.00am Monday 15th Whatever. Please contact Linemanager Email if urgent'.

It's tautologous but I would class it as only mildly irritating. If you want to do something constructive, you could suggest a template for OOO messages that the whole team could use - something polite but to the point.

More annoying are OOO messages that don't suggest any alternative contacts. I understand people might have to put OOO on in a hurry sometimes, but it's easy to save your standard message including your contacts and just paste it in under the dates you will be away - or some versions of Outlook will save the message you used last time so it can just be edited.

I never usually set an OOO, I'm self employed so usually reply to clients promptly.

However I want to now just to use this.

My biggest peeve with out of office replies is when they send you to someone else, who also has an out of office, who send you to someone else, whose out of office sends you back to the first person - who still isn't in!

I don’t know why OP is being criticised for starting a thread about this. Surely you can start a thread about anything you like? And why are her critics replying if they think her thread is petty? Why don’t they just move on?

I’ve seen worse…

I hate silly waffle in emails. I particularly loathe, ‘I hope you’re well…’. Oh shut up and get to the point.

I used to work in copy-writing/Comms. I changed careers and want to scream every time we have to draft anything as a team at work. We have several fans of florid, waffley and confusing writing. If 5 words are good then 10 words must be better...

Absolutely. You're only typing that pasting it from ChatGPT because you want something from me. Just get on with it and tell me what you want, the purpose and the timescale and I'll let you know whether it requires me to perform a minor miracle or one akin to parting the Red Sea after first filling it with a nice Cabernet.