Current Events > I have this Director who constantly overrides all of my phrasing (in comms)

(+) Yeah! (+)

(We're a software company. Sometimes I write press pieces.)

She has this fixation on fluffy verbose corporate speak and I don't know why. Ok, I do know - why but I hate it and I think it serves no actual purpose.

Example:
Me: Make sure you check these bits every so often to keep your database up to scratch.

Then she will correct it:
Ensure that at a fixed schedule sections A through B are routinely processed to maximise your database optimisation and ROI.

How is that a better phrase? It's the kind of sentence you have to read twice to understand.

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Bits, what bits?

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I don't really like the example or her correction, tbh. At least her's is a bit more specific, I guess, but it's still awkward.

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LightHawKnight posted...

Bits, what bits?

There was an image for which context could be derived.


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She's just proactively maximizing synergy

Gotta get the most out of that grammery subscription

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I get that you're going for a more concise and clear wording but the way you wrote that comes across as quite unprofessional. What's the target audience?

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It makes her sound smarter to the other corporate rats.

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That's how you get the big bucks, sonny

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sauceje posted...

I get that you're going for a more concise and clear wording but the way you wrote that comes across as quite unprofessional. What's the target audience?

I have an underlying contention with "professional" as an idea. Like what makes it unprofessional exactly? With the context of the picture it tells the user exactly what to do in comprehensible speak.

I get the argument - i.e. there's a sort of implication that in order to be professional you need to be formal in your language when speaking to clients - but the last 10 years of tech have shown us that that doesn't always work (hence why we have so many companies now that try to be quirky and fun and lowkey, however successfully).

My background in marketing would tell me that we should do some case testing with different sorts of messaging to find out for sure, but I also hate my background in marketing and we don't have a marketing department, so it's not something I want to think too much about.

Anyway, it was a mailshot for existing clients, not prospective ones. I speak to most of them on the phone every week.

This same director once pulled me up for professionalism in email tone because I said "hey" instead of "hello" in an opening message to someone I had good rapport with, so I have an axe to grind over this.

My contention with this director btw is that she has no discernable skills or actual job role so she spends a lot of time worrying about nonsense like this.

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sometimes i type my quarterly slides in text speak because it's just more concise honestly but then my boss turns it into corporate drivel and i go into his office and grunt like a caveman and go U WOT M8 and he knows exactly what i'm saying so this is some bullshit

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If it's with your existing clients that you speak with so frequently, the wording seems fair. Carry on then

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Your comment was almost certainly made with context we don't have so it probably does make more sense, but reading it as written here it does seem pretty vague. Your directors comment is less straightforward but does explain exactly what she wants.

Professional communication doesn't need to be super formal, but it does need to be clear in what it is trying to say.

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