When is it appropriate to let your guard down?

[BJCooperIT]

Are there any circumstances at work when you feel it would be OK to let your bad habits show?

I am currently summarizing a series of e-mails to show what happened on tasks (who did what, said what, spent how much time, held up progress, etc.). It saddens me to see the mistakes that people made in these seemingly innocuous entries. I am sure that they never once gave a thought to having management look at what they wrote and, perhaps, passing judgement on their capabilities.

Examples:
What is different and what is his purpose.
This is more difficult than expectated.

Your opinions?

^{Beware of false knowledge; it is more dangerous than ignorance. ~George Bernard Shaw}
Systems Project Analyst/Custom Forms & PL/SQL - Oracle/Windows

 

[SteveGlo]

Why not ask George or Tony ?

 

[BJCooperIT]

George or Tony who?

^{Beware of false knowledge; it is more dangerous than ignorance. ~George Bernard Shaw}
Systems Project Analyst/Custom Forms & PL/SQL - Oracle/Windows

 

[CajunCenturion]

George Bush or Tony Blair - I think the implication is that you can never let your guard down.

Good Luck
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[BJCooperIT]

The difference is that George Bush and Tony Blair are public figures. Most of us who frequent Tek-Tips sit in our cubes in relative anonymity. Often, if we do our jobs well, most folks have no idea of who we are and what we do. We imagine ourselves to be invisible (well... maybe translucent ). Sometimes we think that our communications with team members or other departments will never really be seen by our manager or personnel or the CIO. Or is it that sometimes we just don't think at all?

^{Beware of false knowledge; it is more dangerous than ignorance. ~George Bernard Shaw}
Systems Project Analyst/Custom Forms & PL/SQL - Oracle/Windows

 

[SQLSister]

Where to draw the line probably depends on the individual situation.

Personally, I never put anything in an email that can't be seen by people other than the intended recipient. This especially refers to content. People forget that email is considered a written record for legal purposes and can be used against you or your company. Since I once worked for an audit agency, I have seen instances where people went to jail because of something they put in an email.

That said, I might not be as careful in my typing if it is something likely to stay purely internal. The CEO of the company already knows me and knows that I have good writing skills (I often write drafts for him or edit his written work), so if I mistype something in an email, I'm not concerned. If I was not already known as a good writer, I would be more careful in informal communications.

For any formally written document(something that will be printed or widely disseminated) or email to an outside source, I tend to be very careful about the wording and proofread carefully as it is part of the company image at that point as well as my professional image.

Questions about posting. See faq183-874

 

[entaroadun]

Ideally, there is no line. We would all speak and write perfectly, with proper grammer, diction, and spelling.

Obviously, in the real world, that is not the case. I would say that you can never let your guard down. After all, it is WORK, so we should all put our best professional feet forward at all times.

This is especially true with e-mail, which is essentially archived forever.

 

[LTeeple]

As a rule of thumb,
When I walk into the office, my employer 'owns' me. I must represent as best I can 100% of the time. Therefore, I never let my guard down.

I do not believe in a business environment that it is ever okay to fool around and waste time and resources.

That said, I believe it's okay to let my guard down off-hours with co-workers (i.e. go play pool, have some pints, etc...).

Mind you, if you own your business, then of course, you can act the way you want, because your actions reflect on you, and you only!


Cheers!
Laura