5 ms·
I once worked with a guy who wrote everything in Comic Sans - despite being counseled about it repeatedly. Fonts set a "tone" to your writing, and while Comic S
by bane 6y ago
I once worked with a guy who wrote everything in Comic Sans - despite being counseled about it repeatedly. Fonts set a "tone" to your writing, and while Comic Sans if maybe fine for inviting people to in impromptu office pizza party, it represents yourself poorly in a professional environment. Here's some examples of how inappropriate some of his emails were (all real):
- Contract negotiations
- HR issues
- Announcing the unexpected death of a co-worker
- Announcing layoffs on a contract loss
It looked ridiculous. It also turns out he was a terrible employee and manager. The two seem to be pretty correlated.
- anigbrowl 6y agoMy favorite inappropriate use case was the death notice of a law partner in a legal newspaper (law firms commonly take out small adverts to announce the arrival or departure of partners). I don't know if this was a terrible failing on the part of the person who bought the ad, or a subtle acknowledgement of the decedent's preferences.
- nescioquid 6y ago> despite being counseled about it repeatedly For me, this makes it farce. Partly because the guy continues to do it after learning it bugs everyone else, and partly because of the earnestness around what fonts someone uses in office emails. My guess is that you were driven to that level of earnestness. What was it like to have a disagreement with this guy about something that mattered (more)?
- bane 6y agoThe best short descriptive word I can come up with is "absurd". It was clearly part of a carefully crafted social image he was trying to portray. It included signing emails with "wise sayings", fortunes, and platitudes like "let your inner light shine the way for others" and other nonsense, long rambling speeches about how we're all each other's brother, and a bizarre need to try to protect the worst performing employees from even minimal levels of accountability. In practice he was pure chaos to work with and never contributed anything meaningful to our work despite having a great looking resume (including stints at some FAANGs and top schools). When cornered about actual technical work he was supposed to be doing he just became annoyingly evasive and tried to redirect the conversation into some kind of drum-circle feelings session. It was like a cheap con-artist, a yoga class, and a fortune cookie had a baby.
- loa_in_ 6y agoIt seems to me like inability to filter out noise, and that's not fault on his end in my view.
- itronitron 6y ago>> despite having a great looking resume I need to know if he also used Comic Sans on his resume.
- gpvos 6y agoI still think it shouldn't be possible to change the font for emails. 80-chars-wide monospaced whatever-your-terminal-offers is good enough.
- postalrat 6y agoHTML email is yet another thing people were fooled into thinking they want.
- aj3 6y agoFont "representing one poorly in a professional environment" sounds to me pretty much the same as insisting on strict dress code, banning facial hair, black or traditional hairstyles, etc.