Emoticons in the Workplace

Platonic writes "According to the New York Times, the Emoticon has become much more than something the kids do after school. The little guys seem to have found their way into the workforce: being used by stock brokers and even the U.S. Military. From TFA: 'I mean, it's ludicrous," said Ms. Feldman, 25. "I'm not going to feel better about losing hundreds of thousands of dollars because someone puts a frown face to regretfully inform me.'"

Emotions are not mutually exclusive from work

[zCyl]

While there are places emoticons clearly do not belong, such as in formal business documents, there are also quite reasonable places to consider using them, such as informal communications between people engaged in business. Smiling, at its most basic form, is a signal that something is not a danger, and acts as a tool for bonding. This has intrinsic value for business, and it's why people also sometimes smile while conducting business in person. Why not extend this capability to less formal electronic communication for business as well since the tool already exists?

The world is not yet ready! ;[

[HitekHobo]

I can only speak for myself, but I always get the feeling that I'm dealing with the lowest possible tier of CSR when I start getting emoticons or excessive punctuation in my communications.

Meh.

[SatanicPuppy]

The gist of the article seems to be, "This is the way it is now, so it's acceptable." I don't really agree.

It's an informal style, so sure, where informality is allowed, sure, why not? If you feel comfortable dropping your boss a joke email, then there is no reason you shouldn't throw in a random emoticon in routine correspondence, but I would seriously recommend against using the "unhappy face" to deliver any sort of bad news, or adding in random emoticons on anything resembling official correspondence, or anything that might get passed on up the line.

It's just not professional.

Ms. Feldman needs to STFU and GBTW.

[FatSean]

It's not always about YOU! It's not supposed to 'make you feel better' you addled-brained twat, it's supposed to clarify the state of mind of the sender! Would you have preferred that the sender put a big ol' grin in there? :D That said, I use emoticons for team communication, but not for formal documents. A yes/no email regarding a potential deal doesn't sound like a formal document to me.

Reintegrating RL Cues

[andrewd18]

Quite frankly, a large majority of what we understand in face-to-face conversation comes from body language. A smaller section are the vocal cues and intonations we pick up on. The smallest part of what we understand in a conversation is the actual words. Since e-mail is only words, and completely lacks the body language/intonation cues we're used to in real life, can you really blame someone for trying to add some of those cues back in?

Apparently yes. I, for one, welcome our "naïve tweens on AOL Instant Messenger finding out after-school soccer practice is canceled" overlords.

In IT

[LordBafford]

I am in the IT industry and internet slang and emoticons are pretty much the norm. Mainly in IM communication in out department. We use Jabber and in daily communication it is not unusual to have a smiley or lols thrown in the chatter. i think it all depends on what field you are in an the type of communication you are using. In an email generally these aren't accepted practice for business, but we do throw them in here and there for less formal occasions.

Re:Emotions are not mutually exclusive from work

[AKAImBatman]

Smiling, at its most basic form, is a signal that something is not a danger, and acts as a tool for bonding.

I don't know about bonding, but I've found myself using emoticons on Slashdot more and more often. The problem I found was that too many people were reading an ultra-serious-- or even accusatory! --tone into posts that were intended to be light-hearted and friendly. Sprinkling the post with :-), :-P, or :-/ here and there can help get the correct tone across, even if it looks kind of lame. :-/

Of course, there will always be those who either miss the purpose of the emoticons or willfully ignore their purpose in communicating tone, but I have found that it clears up the majority of misunderstandings before they occur.

Not always about being "cute"

[Lockejaw]

One of the biggest flaws of text-only communication is that it doesn't include the "side-channel" of body language. A sentence sent as an instant message or email might fit well with many different tones of voice or facial expressions, and that can affect both the meaning and the likely reaction to it.

Sounds like a basketcase

[seanadams.com]

I wonder what the story is behind this Ms. Feldman, 25, and her multizillion dollar real estate deal?

My guess is she got herself real pumped up and greedy over what was probably only passing interest expressed by some buyer. If she's enough of a looney to get this bent out of shape over an "emoticon", then I wouldn't put it past her to grossly overstate the importance or her deal and the notion that it spontaneously fell through at the "23rd hour". I'm guessing her buyer may have been spooked for reasons that had nothing to do with the property...

Re:Meh.

[Orange Crush]

Agreed . . . mostly. Informal written communication doesn't carry inflection, tone of voice or body language. More formal writing can get around these with tasteful word choice, punctuation and structure, and lends itself to being interpreted in a more professional sounding tone. For intra-office instant messengers, smilies are hard to avoid using. People tend to IM very short questions, declaratory statements, etc--it's not appropriate (and won't be read any way) to send a book so they get your full meaning.

I'm also a bit of a smartass, so sprinkling in a few smilies can mean the difference between a laugh and them taking offense . . .

Re:Meh.

[SatanicPuppy]

I think sarcasm is by far the best reason to use an emoticon. Without one, you have to hope the person on the other end has a sufficiently refined sarcasm detector and won't get offended...Not something you want to count on in a work environment.

So?

[iknownuttin]

It's not always about YOU! It's not supposed to 'make you feel better' you addled-brained twat, it's supposed to clarify the state of mind of the sender! Would you have preferred that the sender put a big ol' grin in there? :D

Even with the ":D", your words above can be taken as insulting. I don't know about you, but I've been insulted to my face while the insulter had this nice smile on their face.

Re:Not always about being "cute"

[AndersOSU]

One of the biggest problems with text based communication is that people simply can't write well.

It is perfectly possible to convey humor, sarcasm, or irony with text, plenty of authors did so well before the electronics age.

That said, there are two solutions, if it is an informal and won't be distributed, include the damn smiley. If it's serious or formal (even if you're making a sarcastic comment to your boss,) take the time to make sure your email conveys what you want it to convey. If you can't express what you want in type don't.

The standard cop out that something doesn't translate well to text is bull. Jonathan Swift didn't complainabout how hard it is to write effective satire, nor does Garry Trudeau for that matter.

Re:Meh.

[billdar]

True. But, in a business environment, what you can get away with at the water cooler probably shouldn't be documented with a paper or digital trail....

Re:Reintegrating RL Cues

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is, emoticons are gradually being stripped of their information carrying capacity, or specialized to the point of becoming shorthand dialects. :) and :( may be intrinsically understandable, but more and more I see things like :P used as punctuation. Once upon a time, it was a clearly negative expression. Now, it just makes the person on the other end look like an idiot.

I won't even get into things like :S or :|a -- though in cases like those and even less understandable ones, I'd wager that their use is less for simulating body language and more like slang, intended to exclude the uninformed rather than add depth to a statement.

Re:Emotions are not mutually exclusive from work

[Aceticon]

Same experience here.

Often enough, half the skill in delivering a good joke is in the visual clues one gives (especially when you're being ironic) and in the written medium (especially short articles) without emoticons, all those visual clues are lost.

For example, it's one thing to say:

- Slackware is clearly the easiest, most user friendly Linux distro.

and another to say

- Slackware is clearly the easiest, most user friendly Linux distro ;^D

Re:Emotions are not mutually exclusive from work

[AKAImBatman]

a cop-out that the lazy people use to avoid sharpening their writing

"Proper" writing often requires a great deal more of proof-reading and rewrites than most people are willing to put into a quick post to a forum or an email to a friend. Thus emoticons are less of a "cop out" and more of a useful shortcut in communicating.

a way to soften the tone of the communication by people who are too afraid of offending someone

Why should I want to offend someone who I'm trying to have a pleasant conversation with? Part of intelligent discourse is to address sensitive issues. If you don't keep your tone soft, you may run into a hard wall when emotional investments in the topic are brought to light.

Take Chernobyl as an example. Discussing the actual number of deaths is an emotionally charged issue. Simply stating that the actual death count was vastly exaggerated by the media and that only a few dozen people died will get you a response to the effect of "you heartless bastard!" before you can even get to the issue of the thousands of victims who had to be treated for thyroid cancer. "Softing" one's speech to the point of clinical analysis combined with with a "warm" understanding of other's feelings can help you get farther in a discussion of the issue than immediately offending them, unintentionally or otherwise.

While some don't see the point of such emotionally-charged discourse, I've found that there are often solid reasons at the heart of such emotion. These reasons can often help in shaping a clear, balanced opinion rather than immediately taking sides.

Re:The world is not yet ready! ;[

[iabervon]

And, of course, it's exactly the same as the use of facial expressions and informal speech in face-to-face interaction. The (negative) example from the article is one where it would be similarly inappropriate for the other party to look distinctly sad in a face-to-face conversation, so the emoticon version is also bad. Now, maybe some people are using emoticons to express things they wouldn't express in person, indicating a loss of formality due to the medium where it's required, but that's hardly the same thing, and hardly specific to emoticons.

Re:Emotions are not mutually exclusive from work

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't like your tone.. are you trying to say that I read comments too quickly, and get all huffy? How could you be so mean? *cries*

That's not all you do quickly.

Signed:

Your girlfriend

Emoticons == The New Punctuation

[redelm]

After many years of dismissing emoticons as silly frippery, I have reluctantly concluded they can serve a function as important as punctuation: to convey intend tone in electronic messages which are often highly abbreviated and telegraphic.

Many flamewars have raged because someone missed humor or sarcasm.

OTOH, it is easy to overdo emoticons and they should only be used to clarify meaning. I can see use for smilies, but my imagination doesn't stretch so far as to conceive a situation that needs a frownie or others. When used redundantly, emoticons can be insulting: how else am I supposed to feel?

Medical conversations

[spineboy]

Somehow, I don't think that e-mail and emoticons will ever come into certain conversations in communication with patients.

Mrs. Smith, you have a tumor on your leg and need an amputation :-(

or Mr. Jones, your ESR is 10 :-)

I actually don't talk to patients with e-mail, as it is too hard to misconstrue, or patients take small facts and run with the idea. I have been using computers for 25+ years (Apple II -> Linux), so it's not a comfort issue. Physicians are mixed in this issue, some say it saves much time, others don't for the same reason as I do.

Re:Emotions are not mutually exclusive from work

[Adambomb]

Why should I want to offend someone who I'm trying to have a pleasant conversation with? Part of intelligent discourse is to address sensitive issues. If you don't keep your tone soft, you may run into a hard wall when emotional investments in the topic are brought to light. Um, remember that such writing not only has to be produced but also UNDERSTOOD. I have found using emoticons is sometimes the only way to get people to understand the tone and context without a massive amount of overhead.

Some people just require either a brick or a sandwich to get it.

Re:Meh.

[Anonymous Coward]

A good general rule of thumb:

If you're not comfortable talking about something out loud at work, you probably shouldn't be writing it down either. And vice-versa.

That said, not everything that comes out of your mouth or from your keyboards will be gold. Sometimes it's good to use multiple channels for more dense data. Emoticons is just that: another channel and a highly compressed one at that. Two characters to convey substantial information - I'll take that efficiency. Sure, it's lossy...

Let's face it, email (etc.) limits you to written word in whatever language you happen to be using. You lose visual and tonal cues. Emoticons are just an additional channel of information.

And anything that improves communications in today's world should be welcomed :)