How to professionally say (2022)

The possibility for healthy candor is the result of a trusting relationship.

In the absence of trust, one often needs to resort to passive, blameless, less direct language.

So I work on creating the trust and noting where it is impossible so I can adjust.

Who defaults to corporate speak is often an indication to how much they can be trusted.

I guess I'm the opposite. If you're working with me, please use nicer and kinder language when talking to me.

Totally agree with you on this, it was meant to be satirical but I started to realize that there are many places and people to which these type of conversation is really the only medium to communicate, its sad and in an ideal world I would want that people communicate directly without the need of twisting the words, but I am happy that you advocate and appreciate direction communication over something like this.

People say that and then get upset by terse replies. Even programmers sometimes, albeit less often.

A lot of the suggestions on "How to professionally say" are not only more polite, but also more helpful than the original knee-jerk reply.

"This is not my problem" -> "I recommend directing this issue to <Name> as they have the proper expertise to best assist you"

I'm like this too, and was on a team with another fella like this for a few years. It was great, our other team members thought we absolutely hated each other and didn't understand why we hung out every Friday after work to play board games. It's certainly not a common attitude in the workplace though.

Eh. My experience is that 99% of people who tell me to be direct eventually get offended because I'm too direct. I've noticed that Americans claim to be laid-back and casual, but in reality they're very formal, it's just that they're not posh. Fortunately, I've developed the skill to communicate both efficiently and professionally, I'm the master of practical corpo speech that gets shit done, but it's so radically different from my natural way of speaking that nobody who only knows me privately believes that I'm even capable of taking part in a work meeting without causing a scandal.

Even when I do that on HN, it’s usually unappreciated. I doubt that anyone would risk their job in that cool “what I really mean” society you built there.

I don't work with people doing this kind of politically correct BS. I want brutal honesty, even if its missplaced.

That’s nice to say but there’s a dark underbelly of quietly firing people who don’t quite fit the team culture to achieve such strong relationships. Not always and not immediately, but eventually you either have a black sheep slowly bring your team down or you fire them.

Basically the office equivalent of the plot to Hot Fuzz.

True for your immediate team, but if you work at a giant company where people from all over the world can send you messages and emails and meeting invites, you are always going to have to deal with people who you haven't gotten to know well and maybe have never even met!

Thanks, very interesting read about PDI and the cultural differences.

Speaking for myself, I have great interest in living / working in western Europe, namely Netherlands or Denmark, but as someone living in Japan for a decade and appreciating their polite communication and respect for personal boundary, I'm concerned if I would enjoy life in an environment with more straightforward communication.

Thanks for the link! I thought: but where is the actual guide? and then I turned to the comments to find it.

Definitely not serious --- unless you actually want to sound like a stereotypical bureaucratic corporate drone.

That may be, but the linked page gives no indication as such so for somebody (a non-native English speaker for example) genuinely looking for advice on tactful communication between co-workers - this might be doing more harm than good.

Also if this is indeed satire, it's so subtle as to be functionally nonexistent.

Original: Stop assigning me so many tasks if you want any of them to get done

Alternative: As my workload is quite heavy, can you help me understand what I should reprioritize to accommodate this new task?

The cynic in me says that this started out as an earnest endeavor but the feedback was so brutal that the author backpedaled and "pivoted" the product with a rebranding as satire.

> the "professional" versions are about as rude as "unprofessional" ones, but the wording in those makes it more annoying

That's exactly what I thought. These "professional" responses are hilariously passive-aggressive. Hats off to the author! I just have the fear that some people will use these unironically...

The part where "you get angry with me" for being honest hurts me. So how does that fit into the equation? Am I meant to be hurt for doing what you wanted?

Perhaps a better approach would be to skip the "anger" bit and perhaps fast-forward to the "respect" bit. If that's not possible, then don't be surprised when people stop being honest with you. And most certainly don't complain about it.

I don't feel like going on the anger journey with you

I honestly thought you were making that one up, but it's in there.

"As per my prediction, this outcome does not come as a surprise."

I don't know if there needs to be a "country flag" next to each suggestion or something, because no native English speaker from the United States would ever recommend responding like this. There is simply no possible means of delivery in which this line does not come across as incredibly smug and condescending.

I'm canadian and we (i assume) have a similar culture as the americans.

These don't feel professional, they feel like a satire of professional-speak. Like they use all the sterotypical words but they dont sound like things someone would actually say. Unless you are pissed at someone and are trying to tell someone to "fuck off" without getting fired. Which i guess is the point of the site, but not how professional communication works.

American white-collar workers, to be specific; communications among blue-collar workers is usually far more direct.

This is a pet peeve of mine: the whole first half of the sentence is unnecessary. If something doesn’t come as a surprise then it was predicted.

That said this is satire, and saying it twice does make the joke better.

I have heard variations of most of these in corporate Australia.

But this tends to happen between people or teams that don’t know each other.

They are not Americanized at all.

I've lived in the western US all my life, and worked for many companies large and small.

In my entire life, I have never heard a native speaker of American English talk or write like that, either in a business or personal context.

They do sound like stereotypical Indian business English. No offense to my friends and colleagues from India! It may just be what Americans imagine Indian English sounds like.

Based on some other comments in this thread I think it was originally intended to be satirical but is evolving away from that. Which makes it a bit tricky.

"As per my prediction, this outcome does not come as a surprise." Sounds dickish to this American as well. I think there’s no polite way to say “I told you so.” Maybe something along the lines of “yeah, well, that’s about what we expected, but it was a nice try” could work? It still isn’t great but at least it puts you together on the losing team.

Based on the ambiguity of your comment, it amusingly could mean either the "unprofessional" or the professional version.

> come in to my organization and speak this way.

In my experience the best people to join new teams are the ones who take the time to not state anything for a couple of weeks. Join the meetings, take notes, ask questions, but refrain from stating things. Only after they have a good picture they can start contributing. I like those people.

Why would someone be judged on their first day on the job? Many people are very nervous and not their best version.

Taking a quote out of context:

> simply to say nothing (quickly)

Love it! Say nothing quickly :) Basically don't even bother with the "I told you so" response ... is my intrepretation.