The ability to communicate without actually having to talk to people is wonderful in most cases; however it does come with its challenges. Expressing emotions through a message can be a little tricky. I know there is the option of using emoticons, however those are super douchey so I generally try to stay clear :). It’s very hard to express things like sarcasm anger or even happiness.
I received an email today that was obviously of extreme urgency from an angry person… how do I know this? Not because they said, please please help me this is urgent and I’m angry! No, because the whole message was typed in CAPS LOCK. When reading this email, I must say I was disturbed. The content was not obscene, or degrading however it did make me feel like I was being violated rushed and bitched at while I was reading it.
I am going to outline two sentences to explain myself. “Can you help me out please?” “CAN YOU HELP ME OUT PLEASE?” Although the two sentences above contain the exact same wording, to me the first one says “I need some help, when you get a chance.” The second sentence however says to me, “I’m a huge dick and if you don’t help me I will kill you!” Using caps lock for an entire sentence is one of the few things that is worse than someone ending a sentence with !!!???!?!?!!? (We will touch on that another day). To me it comes across as brash and rude, the equivalence of angrily yelling. And although one might feel it brings across a kind of urgency, really it doesn’t make me read it any quicker, and it most definitely will not get me to reply quicker.
In conclusion: Caps lock is just as annoying as YELLING, but far less effective. So please, use your shift key to start a sentence and leave it at that. If you need to be sarcastic or loud, then pick up the freakin phone and give me a call.
Thanks for listening…. That’s the shit I be talkin about today.
Jeff Albertson
No comments:
Post a Comment