Question

A co-worker sends you a business-related email about the new project assignment. The email has numerous grammar and spelling errors. His language is confusing and you are not certain what the message is stating. You bring up the issue and he responds disgruntled and angrily stating that it was only an email and you are overreacting. By utilizing the concepts from the reading for this unit, how would you appropriately respond to this situation as a professional?

Answer 1

Now this is a sensitive issue and it should be handled with a lot of care otherwise it can go against you. It is very common in the corporate arena that people send grammatically incorrect mails amongst each other and no one literally cares to correct each other as they are able to understand each other even with spelling mistakes or grammatical errors. But in this case if you are not able to understand what the other person is saying you have to tell him one way or the other that you are not able to understand what he is saying.

Now the question arises how would you do it? Generally if you tell anyone that his writing style is full of flaws and that is why you are not able to understand him, he might get offended and this will not serve the purpose.

Some of the best ways to respond in this situation is discussed below:

• Try to befriend that co-worker if possible, take him to canteen to have coffee together and their you can keep your point between any other conversation, this may be enough for your co-worker to understand that you do not want to offend him that is why you have brought him separately and told your problem and he will take care from the next time.
• If you can't follow the first way because your this co-worker is at a different location, call him and ask that you are not able to very clearly understand what is stated in the mail and ask him to tell you if confronted that what is wrong with the mail very gently keep your point and ask him to take care from the next time.
• If the co-worker is still not understanding and is rude keep your superior in CC and revert back the mail with your concerns, sometimes the best way to communicate is to say it directly.