Carolyn Browne Tamler

I am on the Board of a local non-profit. Recently, a staff person in the organization sent around an email saying that her husband would be helping with a volunteer job (a very helpful job, by the way). I, without thinking, immediately sent back a little note – seen by everyone on the group list – joking (I thought) about nepotism. I even included an imoji.

A flurry of group emails followed, where she explained that her husband was volunteering and in no way would be benefiting from this. I sent apologies (and I phoned a personal apology to her). Someone even sent a snarly comment about my humor to the group.

The biggest joke of all is that I need to read my own Blogs. I have actually written about the subject of misunderstood emails and texts on more than one occasion. Here was a Blog I posted last year. The only thing missing is “Don’t use imoji’s to communicate”:

2-25-16 Emails and texts can create lots of misunderstandings

Have you received an email with several misspellings or grammatical errors?

Have you had numerous text exchanges with someone and finally gave up and made a phone call to resolve something?

Have you received a group email that got sent around several times to several people, including you?

Do you find yourself sometimes struggling to get through a long email, only to reach the end and realize you’re still not sure what it was all about?

Have you sent an email or a text assuming the other person would understand your words and your tone, only to get a response back that didn’t really relate to your intentions?

I’m sure you can come up with several other items to put on this list. In our high speed communication age, we rapidly email and text and tweet several times a day….but are we really communicating? There are some disagreements about how much human communication is non-verbal, but I think that we all can agree that lacking voice intonation, facial expression, body language and simply feeling another person’s energy, words alone will not necessarily convey thoughts accurately.

I have a bit of a silly streak in me (those who know me might say it is more than a bit). I learned a long time ago never to use my silliness in an email unless I was absolutely sure that the person knew me well enough to understand the communication (and I’m not sure it’s wise to send anyone a silly email). Of course, I can add an imogi, but……

So, here are a few suggestions to avoid misunderstandings when emailing or texting:

Keep it short and simple
If at all possible, save your sincere, serious communications for in-person or by phone
Read every email over before you press “Send”
If you are sending out a longer email or something with important information, make sure you have someone else read it before you send it
If you are feeling angry or frustrated with someone, DO NOT send them an email or text and let them know this; cool down first, and then make a phone call
If you are sending an email to a group of people, use the bcc, even if everyone knows each other; it will seem more personal and it will be impossible for someone else to press the “Reply all” and send out swirling emails that can drive us crazy.

I know I sound very old-fashioned, but I like to reserve serious communication for when I’m talking directly to someone.