Cultural thing – help me out

You are being a bit sensitive too. It’s not pissy, it’s direct.

It would be polite to do as she requests/demands.

Given one example of her not using a name in the salutation of an email, then open up a full, jumbo size can of whoop-vindictivebehaviourcomplaint-ass on her. 😀

Go team grievance!

If you had asked the question you meant to ask in the first email (when can the client expect to receive this) then you’d have avoid the issue

Hold on there… Have you tried asking more than one question in an email??
I’ve done this quite often and have noticed that the vast majority of people cannot, will not, are incapable of, or are too stupid to ANSWER MORE THAN ONE QUESTION in an email!!

In fairness, you could say she answered exactly what i asked; but in the context of other messages in that chain it was pretty obvious that even though the question was mildly ambiguous it was easy to understand what the actual question should have been and / or also extrapolate it slightly to impart some additional info that would be useful.

But she was just being pissy about that too, I think.

(akin to the hot air ballonist joke – excuse me, where am I – you’re in a hot air balloon; 100% correct, 0% useful)

No doubt I’ll be accused of racism here, but Im going to ask anyway.
Is she native to the UK or China. If she was born and brought up in the UK then she’s being pissy, if she isn’t native to the UK it may be a cultural thing.
But I thinks shes just being a bit of a bitch with an over inflated view of herself.

I usually apologise then keep doing whatever the hell I feel like doing. Civil Servant though.

It could be that there is a mismatch between the English that she has been taught and real English.

This occurred between my boss and I. I address emails to her “Anja,…”. She thought I was being formal and distant and very slightly rude/shouty because she had always been taught that “Dear Anja,…” was the right way of starting an email. She took a bit of convincing that starting with Dear suggested more formality and that “Anja,..” was being more friendly. To a German, just the first name sounds wrong.

The organisation I work for has 3 working languages and staff from 35 countries all bobbing along with each other and its own slightly strange sounding form of English that you don’t see in the UK.

This occurred between my boss and I. I address emails to her “Anja,…”. She thought I was being formal and distant and very slightly rude/shouty because she had always been taught that “Dear Anja,…” was the right way of starting an email. She took a bit of convincing that starting with Dear suggested more formality and that “Anja,..” was being more friendly. To a German, just the first name sounds wrong.

To be fair it sounds a bit wrong to me too. I mix Hi XXX…. and Dear XXX….. to senior management depending on context and Hi XXX…. to everyone else on internal emails. Sometime a ‘Gents….’ or just a ‘Morning….’ to mix things up a bit. Would never just write XXXX…. Second response in a thread never gets header but I mostly finish it with the single letter of my first name for no explicable reason.

To and from information is contained in the email header, so it’s always there and should never need typing into the email body.

The exception is the Japanese…. but how you address them in an email is the least of your problems tbh.

10 quid says the OP mistook her for being Chinese when in reality shes from Japan.

I sense a chat with HR coming, the racist bastard.

Just send back two words; “my apologies”. You’re both apologising and winding her up at the same time. 😈

As a child of the 70’s playground, I have no trouble telling the difference between people of China, Japan or Thailand.

Or indeed people with dirty knees, or breasts.

(that probably is about as racist as i get in reality)

I’m also fully versed in the location of the various dispensers for milk, lemonade and chocolate (round the corner)

….but can you play the hairy banjo?

not in a workplace setting

Just send back two words; “my apologies”. You’re both apologising and winding her up at the same time.

+1 😀

I always annoy people by walking over to discuss whatever they just e-mailed me about. Thus making more work for them when they feel the need to follow it up with another “to confirm what we just discussed” e-mail, which they then CC their/our/my boss in on, which makes me look busy.

blank her. Prissy people can piss off. Don’t get her a brew. Don’t say good morning or goodbye to her. If you pass her in the corridor stare out of the window. give her another chance in a year or so.

Lick her chop sticks…

FFS why not just give her a call?

What’s wrong with calling people or talking to people nowadays? Even if she is in China the call will not cost much … FFS.

Just apologise, explain the reasons why you responded the way you did then add it’s the result of a corporate decision to reduce the time spent typing internal emails.

Add a PS along the lines of, if you’d have given me all the information in the first place there would have been no need for your follow-up email.

wee in her shoes ?
whilst shes wearing them .
I am with you ,I send an email ” Hi, blah balh blah de blah “
Reply reads ” Hi , Yes Thursday 2 pallets”
I will then ping back ” Lamberts ?”
The reply will most likely be ” Y “
The end
No time for prissy ‘pants wedged right up there’ ” Please address me formally” tosh.
How about sending on liners contained in the content box ?
See if that goes down like The Titanic
Otherwise its a full on Word template you could C&P across then fill in the middle and always send the guff above and below

So glad I dont work in an office. I spent today fitting a glycol chiller unit and wooden framework and planning the piping runs.

FFS why not just give her a call?

What’s wrong with calling people or talking to people nowadays? Even if she is in China the call will not cost much … FFS.

because I don’t need to, or want to. Because thanks to folks on here, I’ve clarified that it isn’t a cultural thing, and it’s just her being difficult.

As a result I have no particular desire to waste time on people that are difficult, or pissy, or indeed people who think it’s my problem. I’ll make sure I always say Hi X, at the start, because that’s polite, but I’m not going to ‘apologise’ to her for her problems.

That also means you Chewk, in case it doesn’t translate well.

perchypanther – Member
Em, her slats are in the same place as every other woman’s
Must…..Resist…..

I know where you’re coming from with that one Perchy 😆

As someone who lived in China for a few years I would say it was more cultural. The Chinese education system teaches that there is a right way and a wrong way and I imagine she has been taught that all emails should begin with a name in English so she probably thought you were being rude by not using her name. HTH.

Start crying and offer to resign and live the rest of your life in a slum for retired racists, that will teach her 😉