My day was going well – oh so well – until a colleague sent me a link.
Like the cheerful and competent person I am, I opened it.
“Our findings provide first-time evidence that, contrary to actual smiles, smileys do not increase perceptions of warmth and actually decrease perceptions of competence.”
Wait, wait, wait… wah?!
“In formal business emails, a smiley is not a smile.”
That, dear friends, is what scientists from Israel’s Ben-Gurion University wrote in a statement last week. A statement that condemned any use of tone in work emails and has therefore changed my professional life forevermore.
You see I, Michelle Andrews, am the most prolific user of emojis in the Mamamia office. And without being hyperbolic, probably the whole world.
Top Comments
I will use smiley faces in emails with colleagues when the email isn't strictly work related, but that's it (I emailed a woman in accounts today about how I'd eaten a whole French stick over the weekend, after she told me that she's eaten a whole sourdough loaf the day before. Added a sad face to that one). And I would never use kisses, that is simply unprofessional as all get out.
I simply can't imagine writing this:
Dear Kay,
please find attached the agenda for Thursday's meeting regarding the new risk framework.
If you would like to add any items, please let me know.
Kind Regards
Zepgirl
xxxx :) :) :) :)
My God, I look like I'm fourteen.
Only thing worse than this would be changing every tittle (the dot above the i and j) into a little love heart. At that point I would formally dismiss everything that the person has to say on the assumption that they're an idiot.
Oh, snap (on the love heart dots).
Seriously? It would never cross my mind to use smileys in work correspondence any more than I would consider randomly enclosing my cat pictures. There is a time and a place for both, but that place is in informal communications.