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Absolutely agree. This is how the email should look like: "Hi Everyone, Starting next week if you want to work from home you must send an explanatory writeup
by Paul_S 14y ago
Absolutely agree. This is how the email should look like:
"Hi Everyone,
Starting next week if you want to work from home you must send an explanatory writeup to your manager who will decide whether to allow it."
On a tangential issue: I hate when people sign their emails (especially internal ones) when there's a perfectly serviceable from field. If you have to then please be thoughtful and use the -- signature convention.
- pavel_lishin 14y agoI don't like your proposed email, because it proscribes a solution without describing the problem.
- lmm 14y agoNeither of the given examples were a search for alternative solutions to the problem. If you're after suggestions, that's cool - but when you're giving orders, call them orders.
- masklinn 14y agoNo, but at least the second one explains the problem — or at least what is perceived as the problem — it's trying to solve. Which opens up the ability for discussion of alternative solutions, or the criticism of there being a problem at all.
- lmm 14y agoWhich is a miscommunication, if the CEO is not actually open to such discussion or criticism.
- mcguire 14y agoThe title of the article was "...Kill Company Culture", not "...Demonstrate that the Company is Dead". If the CEO (or the intervening levels of company) are not open for discussion, the choice of email really doesn't matter. If they are, and the terse, uncommunicative, fiat email is sent out inadvertently, then that email is damaging.
- Paul_S 14y agoIt's not gathering opinions, it's conveying a decision. I'd appreciate the terseness as it values my time. ...maybe I'm just jealous of companies who allow you to work from home.
- pavel_lishin 14y agoI don't necessarily expect to be asked for my opinion on policy, but I'd at least like to know what problem the policy is solving.
- Tloewald 14y agoIt's conventional to sign letters even though it's also conventional to put one's name and address on the top of e letter, especially business letters, and on the envelope. It's also conventional to use people's names when talking to them even both speaker and subject know who they are.