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Written by Kieran Delamont, Associate Editor, London Inc. | |
COMMUNICATION
Sorry, not sorry
The problem with telling women to email like men
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THERE’S AN AD out there right now for Apple’s new AI tools, where an oafish office worker, Warren, types out a too-casual email to his boss, highlights the text and runs it through the program to clean it up, making it more professional. The boss is impressed! And Warren earns a leg up at work. (Nicely done, Warren.)
Tool of the future? Perhaps. But not anything new, particularly for some white-collar women in the professional world who have realized that one easy way to gain a little respect is to email like a man ― which is to say, short, to the point, maybe even a bit blunt.
“No more courtesy phrases, babes,” said career coach Kay Bray last year. One software developer, Kristel Cocoli, summarized the idea behind the trend, saying she “noticed how overly polite and padded my emails could get, especially compared to the short, straight-to-the-point emails I get from my colleagues and collaborators. I thought, ‘What if I just edited out all the fluff and sounded more like them?’”
It’s all a bit tongue in cheek, but it has some evidentiary basis. Since the early days of emails, researchers have clocked gendered differences in the way emails are written and thus perceived. “Research has reported that females use exclamation points more frequently than do males,” wrote researchers in 2006. As early as 1995, researchers noted that “when elements of speech and writing are associated with female communication style, they tend to be described in negative terms.”
Emailing like a man is really nothing more than an attempt to short-circuit these intrinsic biases in workplace communication.
But it’s 2025, say many, and there’s no reason for any of this anymore. “For the past 70 years, women will periodically adopt behaviours that are stereotypically assumed to be masculine, but in reality are just simply human,” psychology professor Ronald Levant told DigiDay. “For women to abandon skills that they have in abundance is a mistake, in my view.”
In the post-Covid workplace, where communication is primarily digital, it’s not all that surprising that the trend made a brief comeback. But it’s also unsurprising, then, that some look at this trend and rather than turning away from their emailing tendencies, want to lean harder into them.
“Virtually every email I send has at least one exclamation point, one smiley face and probably one or two thank you’s,” wrote Dana Walden. “Professionalism is not synonymous with masculinity, and a more generous communication style is not indicative of a lack of capability.”
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CULTURE
Are you guilty of ‘boomerasking?’
Ever asked someone a question with the sole intention that they ask you the same question back? Turns out there’s a name for that
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THERE’S A NEW name for an old water-cooler social faux pas floating around. Dubbed ‘boomerasking’ (nope, not your uncle calling for help with a PDF), it’s the offence of asking questions you really want to answer yourself.
Think asking a colleague, “What are you doing this weekend?” just so they can ask you back, and you can talk about your cool plans.
“Like the looping arc of a boomerang, boomeraskers ask a question, let their counterpart answer and then immediately bring the focus of the conversation back to themselves,” wrote Harvard Business School professor and small talk expert Alison Wood Brooks, in the Wall Street Journal, last month. “I call this tactic boomerasking, and it happens constantly.”
Brooks’ broadside against this annoying conversational tic touched a nerve. The Times of London writer Esther Walker, a boomerasking hater, chimed into the conversation, writing that she’s “sure that not all boomerasks are intended to create status anxiety, but nevertheless over the years I spiralled into lunatic anxiety about where we were going on holiday, feeling tremendous pressure to always be off somewhere.”
Okay, so let’s get one thing straight: we’re all almost certainly guilty of doing this at one point or another. Let this then serve as a reminder that people find it annoying. And it’s the kind of thing that puts some frost on new relationships at work and in your personal life. If you’re finding RTO a bit tough in the social department, maybe make sure you’re not doing this.
“You should never ask a question unless you really want to know what the other person thinks or feels,” said Jeff Haden in Inc. “Do that often enough, and we just might become good enough friends that you won’t have to boomerask. You’ll just be able to tell me.”
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Terry Talks: What the Eagles’ Super Bowl win can teach us about success in business
| In this week’s Terry Talks, Ahria Consulting founder Terry Gillis reflects on the Philadelphia Eagles’ incredible turnaround from their struggles in 2024 to Super Bowl success. What changed? Teamwork. A team ― whether on the field or in the workplace ― thrives when everyone is working cohesively toward the same goal. Terry highlights the three C’s ― clarity, connection and commitment ― that made all the difference. | | | |
BENEFITS
Why your retirement fund might soon include crypto
Generation Z and Alpha are embracing cryptocurrencies as an alternative to traditional pensions
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MANY IN YOUNGER generations are taking more than a passing interest in the idea of cryptocurrency payment, according to a new survey by crypto exchange Bitget: one in five within Gen Z and Alpha (that’s the generation younger than Z) are now open to receiving pension payouts in cryptocurrency.
You could look at this a few ways. One is that when asked about the very non-specific idea of getting paid a pension in crypto, 20 per cent shrugged and said, ‘Yeah, sure.’ Another is that it says less about the trustworthiness of crypto, and more about a lack of trust in traditional retirement.
Indeed, 78 per cent of Bitget’s respondents said they trust alternative pension options more than traditional ones, and 73 per cent said they don’t know where traditional pension money is put.
“Young people are reshaping the way we think about money,” said Bitget CEO Gracy Chen. “The rise of crypto pensions isn’t just a passing trend ― it’s part of a larger financial revolution. The industry needs to catch up.”
On its own, this is essentially a curiosity finding, but there is a real shift going on here ― for all the skepticism in crypto older financial advisors have, gen Z view them as long-term assets. It’s harder to get a read on exactly how prevalent crypto investing is, but some reports suggest that someone in gen Z is four times more likely to have a crypto account than a retirement account, and that crypto is the most commonly held financial asset among younger generations.
From a workplace perspective, it counters the suggestion that young people aren’t big on saving. They are, they just do it differently.
The good news is that people are still saving. The bad news is that the financial industry is going to have to figure out how to turn investments in cryptocurrencies into actual retirement plans.
“Younger generations are no longer content with one-size-fits-all pension systems. They’re looking for modern solutions that give them more control,” said Chen. “This is a wake-up call for the financial industry.”
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FASHION
No brown in town? Think again
Like many erstwhile sartorial rules, discouraging brown shoes with blue or black trousers has fallen victim to the accelerated shift to relaxed workwear
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LOTS OF RULES in the world of work, written and unwritten, have crumbled in the past couple of decades. But one that has been stubbornly persistent is the old ‘no brown in town’ adage ― that is, no brown shoes with a business-appropriate blue or black suit.
It comes up again and again and again in white-collar professional forums, and even though brown shoes are certainly prevalent inside and outside the workspace, in the words of one poster, “it very much is still a thing.”
As recently as five years ago, the rule was holding on. “Speaking at a conference, an unnamed lawyer has told trainees never to wear brown shoes,” wrote The Guardian’s Sam Wollaston in 2019. “A study by the UK government’s Social Mobility Commission in 2016 found that investment banks are less likely to hire men who wear brown shoes to an interview.”
But all that has seemingly changed. Last month, The New York Times declared the rule a dead letter, describing it as “a victim of the casual Friday-ization of every day and the demise of the suit and tie. “After all,” writes fashion critic Vanessa Friedman, “when your jacket and trousers no longer match, it’s less of a big deal when your shoes don’t match either. In fact, it kind of makes sense.”
So, wear those brown Oxfords without a care in the world. The world of workwear is a bit of a free-for-all right now anyways, so it is unlikely anyone will even bat an eye.
“The more people who opt for change, the less the formerly unexpected colour choice will stand out,” Friedman said. But The Times’ fashion desk does have some parting advice: be sure you wear socks in those shoes. “The bare ankle thing,” added menswear critic Guy Trebay, “is as stale as day-old sprezzatura.”
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