ALL CAPS

[DrFaroohk]

The district manager types her e-mails in all caps...would it be terribly wrong of me to tell her how annoying that is, and if it would be cool, what would the best way of saying it? (i.e. "That's annoying!" probably would land me in the unemployment line).

[siead_lietrathua]

probably something to the effect of how hard it is to read her emails in capslock would work. or blame miscommunication errors on the caps.
but, ya know CAPSLOCK IS CRUISE CONTROL FOR COOL!!1!!!!1

[Pedersen]

Depends. I've seen places where the software in use pretty much demanded most everything be in all caps. If your company uses such software, then it would probably not be received well.

Otherwise, a message like this might work:

Hi DM! I wouldn't bother you about this normally, but there is something that is done relatively often that tends to bother me. It seems that some people send email in all capital letters, and due to my own experiences it feels like I am being yelled at when I receive such emails.

If you see anybody sending those sorts of emails, could you let them know the recipient might see it as being yelled at, and might not go over very well? I'll do my part by telling them the same.

Thank you!

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

Hi DM! I wouldn't bother you about this normally, but there is something that is done relatively often that tends to bother me. It seems that some people send email in all capital letters, and due to my own experiences it feels like I am being yelled at when I receive such emails.

If you see anybody sending those sorts of emails, could you let them know the recipient might see it as being yelled at, and might not go over very well? I'll do my part by telling them the same.

Thank you!

That may well be the point--to yell at the recipient without having to drag her butt to the store to do it in person.

[counterjockey]

My company has a number of people who still do this, I'm guessing out of habit. We're a chain of convenience stores, so email isn't exactly a priority at the store level. Mostly it's supply or maintenance requests, payroll updates, procedure changes. All of our online forms, spreadsheets, what have you, are in CAPS, and often Caps Lock key is just left on for days at a time.

Of course, our store computers are bog-slow and ancient mismatched heaps. Whenever the connection to Corporate implodes, or the thing freezes up, or the thing just acts dumb, I like to point out that at least they *are* Y2K compliant.

[Lostfiniel]

We had a problem awhile back with some of the people working at our hotel. Most of us type up the reservations normally....one person doesn't capitalize anything (which is fine by me.) But then we hired a couple people who really were just lazy. They also happened to be the ones who were fired pretty quickly. (One guy was fired when he stopped showing up to work. Two days in a row we didn't see or hear from him. The next day he calls us to let us know that he was drunk all weekend and in jail. He will be there next week. )

[RecoveringKinkoid]

This is not something to put a target on yourself over. Let it go.

I have friends who do this. They are not obnoxious. They are not "yelling." they just aren't very internet savy. I don't correct them because it bothers me so little it's not worth embarassing them over.

I probably ought to mention it, though, simply because others are bothered by it, and my friends would be embarassed if they thought they were committing a faux pas.

Feh. Can't win.

As for the note Penderson suggests: Let me preface this with saying it's a good, well written, non-offensive note. And I am right there with you. One shouldn't type in all caps, it's considered "yelling." However, I have to point out that if I was so clueless about internet manners that I didn't know that, and I received such a note, I'd think the writer was off his rocker. You are absolutely right, of course, but I am pointing out how the recipient may view such a note. They might think the sender was way overly sensitive or a little batty, to think something as innocuous as an email written in caps could make that person feel persecuted. Hence my reluctance to go out on the limb to correct them.

[Pedersen]

As for the note Penderson suggests:

Totally off topic, but I've finally seen someone do this And can actually ask about it. You see, my handle is my last name in real life. And so often, in real life, people do say Penderson. I can understand the common mispronunciations (it's pronounced just like Peterson, but is spelled Pedersen), but have never managed to understand where that extra N comes from.

It's like the world doesn't have enough of them, so throws an extra one in the middle of my name. Never have understood that

So, where did it come from? Any ideas would be well received, I can promise. I don't mind the other common misspellings, but that one always gets to me.

Sorry for the off topic ness there.

[Barefootgirl]

Back on topic (sorry, Pedersen - and FWIW, i DO pronounce Pedersen and Peterson differently !). Correcting the District Manager's email etiquette is NOT going to endear you to anyone, least of all her. Given that you said you've been busted for not carding people for cigs a couple of times, I would have thought you'd want to keep your head down and your nose clean at this job, unless of course you're trying to get made surplus to requirements.

Make sure you write your own emails in proper English, in correct sentence case, and perhaps she'll get the message. If she doesn't, maybe you should hang on until you get made DM, and then you can send out a district-wide memo reminding everyone to use correct sentence case in emails !

[Jack T. Chance]

In a perfect world...

In a perfect world, you could help the DM get the message by simply sending him/her this little picture:





Sadly, in the real world, the vast majority of DMs I've had were complete and total asshats, the kind of people that would get pissed off at you for daring to tell them how to do their job! Your days with the company would be severely numbered after that.

So, really, I guess it just all depends on your DM's personality. But I personally wouldn't risk it.

[RecoveringKinkoid]

As someone who's very simple married last name is frequently mispelled by one letter, and then TOTALLY mispronounced on an infuriatingly regular basis, I totally, totally apologize. Sorry, man.

[Pedersen]

As someone who's very simple married last name is frequently mispelled by one letter, and then TOTALLY mispronounced on an infuriatingly regular basis, I totally, totally apologize. Sorry, man.

No need for apologies. I realized afterwards I should have said that I was smiling while typing it. It's more of a life long joke with me than it is anything else. Sometimes, I feel compelled to ask, but that's as upset as I get about it.

Mind you, the weirdest was in high school, when my last name for attendance rosters was spelled with the N, but for my report cards was spelled without it. I have no idea how that happened, and that was actually somewhat annoying.

Now? Don't worry. It was just my annual questioning time

[Kilamon]

The nice thing about email is that you can create an account for free or use an anonymizer tool and then send that above image to your DM along with a rant that s/he is a tard and needs to learn that caps went out of style when DARPANet was young. Just be sure you don't sign it.