I started taking on more responsibilities and working with more people in other departments. I wasn’t the new kid on the block anymore, and people trusted me to get things done. But wouldn’t you know it, soon I became one of the people getting emails asking for answers. To be honest, nothing drastic happened when I finally worked up the courage to let go of "just." No one was offended no one said I was curt. “Just” was the comfort zone I clung to for fear of sounding too tough, too intense, too mean-basically everything women are conditioned not to be. If I sent an email without a “just,” I was worried I sounded aggressive. It dawned on me that anyone could still be a friendly, awesome, warm person and maintain an heir of professionalism and authority in the office. But via email especially, he was taken seriously. And guess what? He wasn’t a mean, scary person! On the contrary, he was hilarious and wonderful.
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The topic of various emailing styles came up, and one assistant who notoriously sent short, to-the-point, vaguely scary emails explained his method: He didn’t have time for pleasantries, but he wasn’t impolite. You don’t need to apologize for doing your job.Īfter months of “just”-ing my way through work, I realized how loaded this little word was at an after-hours gathering of the office’s assistants.
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“Just” makes it sounds like whatever you’re emailing about needs to be apologized for. “Just following up to see if you’ve read my last three emails…”īut here’s the thing: starting off an email with “just” demeans what you have to say. “Just wanted to see if you had some time to chat about…” “Just wondering if you have had a chance to review…” “Just checking in to see what times work for this meeting.” Basically, it’s another word for “sorry.” For example: And somehow I got it in my head that adding that little “just” in there made whatever request I had smaller, easier to handle, and less of an inconvenience to whoever I was emailing. “Just” is a word that minimizes whatever follows. They couldn’t even be bothered to click their mouse into another email field because they were so damn busy! I longed to be that important one day. For instance, the subject of the email would be “Is 2pm OK for tomorrow’s meeting?” and the body of the email would be left blank.
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And then there were those whose entire email would exist in the subject line. Others would sign their emails with only their first initial-or not at all! This, I thought, was very casual and cool. There were those who structured their messages like a letter-very formal and polite. In this kind of environment, you can’t really help but think of the way people send emails as a kind of personality litmus test. Face-to-face discussions were rare most of your day was spent constantly refreshing your inbox for movement on projects, and conversely, getting up from your desk to use the bathroom … only to return to a 600-email explosion. Shortly after beginning my first real, professional-lady job out of college, it became apparent that email is the main mode of communication in an office-the language of the workplace, if you will.