Boy, I can think of examples where I use these every day.
We will be shipping your order collect as requested. I see we have both a FedEx and UPS account on file for you. Do you have a preference? Please advise.
Manager sends: FYI, updated project ID# for May is 721.345.4. Reply: Noted.
Friendly Reminder: Cake in the cafeteria at 2pm for Bob’s retirement.
Dock manager: Pallet came in for you and we are short on space. Can you relocate it by noon? Reply: Will do.
Hi Sally, here’s another order for today. Same shipping and billing as previous. Can be shipped with previous orders. Thanks in advance.
Hey Tom. Per our last conversation the lead time on the tooling was 3 weeks. Due to a material shortage that has been extended to 5 weeks.
Hello Carol, Circling back with you regarding the quote you provided last month. Production is ready to proceed with this purchase.
Kari, the vendor was able to meet the deadline and will be able to get us the product by Monday as promised.
Some of your uses are not P-A in any way, some of them definitely will be interpreted as such by some people. For example:
You already asked if they have a preference, so what is the point of the additional “please advise?” It could be construed as “I don’t trust you to answer a question unless I make it explicit.”
Not P-A. An example of P-A use would be more like “Friendly reminder, your report was due today. Should I still expect it?”
With “TIA”, you indicate that you expect this to happen with no discussion. What if Sally is out sick today? What if it’s Bob’s job now? “TIA” means don’t bother me with any excuses. And maybe that’s your intent (and is perfectly acceptable depending on the respective roles), but it is still aggressive.
Open to interpretation. Some people will be thankful that you reminded them of the original timeline. Others might be offended that you consider them forgetful. Again, this doesn’t mean you should never use it; it just means to think about how it might be received and decide if that matches your intent.
Not P-A. They’re talking about uses like “As promised, here’s that report [that you keep bugging me about every hour].”
For phrases like “as promised’, “as per our discussion”, - I used those all the time when I was working (although the full phrase was usually something like “as promised during our meeting at the Smith project last Tuesday”) …… I never saw those as passive aggressive at all. It was actually important information, a preemptive answer to the question “Why are you sending me this information?
I was frequently sending out technical details to clients, we were working through multiple technical problems on each project and I usually had multiple projects going with each client. If I had sent the information without that sentence, I probably would’ve gotten a response like “why are you sending me this?” about half the time….and, if they didn’t ask, sometimes they would’ve called a week later with a “friendly reminder” because they didn’t associate the e-mail with the correct project, or they just ignored it because they didn’t know why I was sending the information.
I did use it passively-aggressively once, because I was meeting with new clients and I promised them drawings in two weeks and they acted like absolute asses when I made that promise. “That’s the 14th, you know?” Next Tuesday, not Wednesday or Thursday.” I’m writing it down, I’m marking on the calendar ,see?” …client writes Drawings from Ann on the calendar in red and shows it to me.
So you can bet I used “as promised” when I sent the drawings a week early, and I meant it totally passive-aggressively……but I usually didn’t.
Thanks in advance is passive-aggressive af, but it worked. Circling back is just annoying business speak.
I use “Please advise” as notice that I will be looking for a reply to my email. If someone finds that passive aggressive, I can only go fully aggressive by saying, “Too damn bad.” Some people need to be prodded.
That’s the usage of “Friendly Reminder” that I’m familiar with, and which makes my flesh crawl. It’s from someone who’s peeved (whether rationally or not) but can’t come right out and acknowledge it.
Agreed; that was exactly my point earlier. The word “friendly” is ironic in most such usages, much like my comparison with the similarly ironic “No offense, but …”.
WordFinder also identified some of the least passive-aggressive work phrases, including “Sorry to bother you again,” “Any update on this” and “I’ll take care of it.”
…but the first two are more passive-aggressive than anything on the list and the last wouldn’t substitute for any.
Kind of wondering about this in general: Is there a polite-ish way to prod someone else via email – especially a peer, or someone of about equal rank in another company – that CAN’T be interpreted as “passive-aggressive”?
I just say “Thanks” at the end of my request. It can be taken as thanks for doing the future task or just thanks for your attention to the request regardless of the outcome or even thanks for reading this and getting back to me with your availability/capability for the request.
In my experience, there isn’t a one size fits all way to handle this. It depends on the context (is the thing I’m reminding you about something that we agreed on? Is it something optional? What’s out relationship? Is it something you are actually opposed to doing and likely to drag your feet on?). Generally, I try to communicate in a way I’d like to be communicated with. If it is with a peer who I know is deliberately (or through incompetence) holding up something important, I’ll add my boss to the cc list (VPs tend to be overvalued in large organizations, but they do have their uses).
Most of those depend on context, of course, but I do agree that “Please advise” sounds pretty curt and irritated, if not passive-aggressive, to me. The only contexts I personally ever use that is when emailing a help line because some company’s piece-of-shit service or product isn’t working how it’s supposed to and their help pages are useless, and there’s no line to call to actually talk to somebody live. By that time, I’m pretty ticked off at the lack of immediate support, and that email always ends up being an explanation of the problem, the solutions I’ve tried, and a final “Please advise” with an implied “assholes” after it.
“Thanks in advance” similarly sounds rather presumptuous to me most of the time. And I find it usually comes after a request that is not straightforward and something that I might not actually agree to do without further discussion, so thanking in advance comes off as presumptuous, at best, to passive-aggressive.
That said, there are folks that I’ve come to accept phrases like that in a neutral context, so I don’t try to think anything of it, but those are the general vibes I get from those two.
It’s really not important if I think the phrases are passive aggressive or not; it’s important whether or not the people I address them to do. I find that list useful. When in doubt, don’t. The English language always offers alternatives.
99% of work emails I receive are bullshit anyway. If I weren’t so inured to it, I could take offense to the entire damned emails, w/o worrying about individual phrases.
I find the article somewhat incomplete. If it had examples, and suggested alternatives, it would be far more interesting and less confusing / controversial.
However, I basically agree with peccavi’s analysis (post 18). Some of the expressions in themselves have a negative feel (e.g. “noted”), while others are pretty neutral but could potentially be used in a P-A way.
Is sarcasm the same as passive aggression, I wonder? I feel like, when I’ve had something explained to me by a co-worker in a condescending or nagging manner in the past (or, let’s be honest, by Mrs. solost on occasion), I’ve replied by saying 'noted." in a flat, clearly sarcastic tone.
Well either way, somewhat negative and hence worth being aware of how it’s perceived.
I used to have a Swedish colleague whose English was impeccable. But, when anyone would tell her something good that was happening for them / their team, she would say “Good for you!”, and people, including me, would take it as her sarcastically saying that you were bragging. Then one day I realized she was unaware of this implication of the expression in British English, and she was indeed surprised to learn this.
(…or was her surprise actually sarcasm )
Heh- your story made me think of this classic KITH sketch. Sounds like your former Swedish colleague had the same condition as this guy (takes about 40 seconds to get past the setup and get to the sarcasm)…
I believe that most of these phrases are “neutral” rather than passive-aggressive, but people have come to expect personal affirmation in every response. Today, it’s just not good enough to say “will do”, but “oh - thanks for bringing this up and I’ll get right on it” (of course - not as sarcasm).
Since these are neutral phrases, the recipient brings their own interpretation. Chaos theory.
And, for a while, I was fond of the phrase “very well” as a go-to response:
“We want you to get on this task now.” “Very well.”
“We’re going to reorganize the office.” “Very well.”
“The office is on fire.” “Very well.”
One other thought. If you say “Will do”, is there someone in the office named William?
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