Avoid Using These Passive-Aggressive Phrases in Work Emails.
After countless meetings that could have been held over email, the rise of remote work has helped some of us ease some of it—at least the in-person variety. We may not spend as much time in meetings, but the surge in written communication with our colleagues comes at a cost: passive-aggressive emails.
In fact, when online learning platform Preply surveyed US employees about workplace communication, 83% of participants reported receiving passive-aggressive emails, half of whom indicated they had noticed a sharp increase in such messages since the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. 19 pandemic.
The survey also found that some passive-aggressive phrases are worse than others. Here are the emails you should avoid in work emails.
Avoid using these passive-aggressive phrases in work emails.
Preply’s survey results show that people hate receiving unnecessary reminders more than any other type of message. Knowing this, it’s no surprise that respondents named “According to my last email” as the most passive-aggressive phrase to use in a work email. Here’s the full list of the top 10 (in order):
- “According to my last letter”
- “Correct me if I am wrong”
- “As mentioned earlier”
- “Just a gentle reminder”
- “Go ahead”
- “I thought I’d bring this to your attention.”
- “Maybe I’m wrong, but”
- “Thank you in advance”
- “Just to clarify”
- “Please advise”
Of course, how people perceive these phrases also depends largely on the context of the email, as well as their relationship and familiarity with the sender. And while people hate receiving passive-aggressive messages, 44% of those surveyed admitted to having sent them.
So why do we do this?
According to Sylvia Johnson , a language expert who participated in the survey, people resort to using passive-aggressive phrases in written communications with colleagues when they can’t think of a direct way to express their frustration.
“All of these phrases are polite on the surface and try to mask the author’s irritation, and that, in a nutshell, is passive-aggressive language,” she notes.