Ms. McMahon’s Grade Three Class

You know how it feels when some “artist” butchers your favorite song? Or when they “update” your familiar greasy spoon restaurant, the quaint one you love because it’s so kitschy? Or at the really, really, hoity-toity place where your once-a-year special date is ruined by rowdy patrons at the next table and lukewarm food slopped onto your plate?

We really do pay attention to presentation. Presentation can make or break content. My Dad, who in one of his many incarnations was a food manager, said to everyone who would listen and many who wouldn’t, “The eyes eat first.” The older I get, the more I realize that he was right about most things, including this.

So why is it we get letters from banks and insurance companies and charities that look like the product of Ms. McMahon’s Grade Three class? Given the way Spellcheck and Grammarly try to herd us like border collies, I just don’t get how someone can let so many errors make their way into “official” correspondence.

It’s not just the spelling and the grammar, though. It’s the blandness, the lack of imagination, the imprecision, the rambling, the… Seriously, it’s like the Grade Seven band at their first concert – but for the program, you’d have no idea what they were playing. If you’re going to spend the money and the time to send me a letter, for heaven’s sake, take the time and the care to make sure I can not only understand it, but that it moves me the way you hoped.

If all the above is true for paper correspondence, all restraint comes off for email, twittering, texting and Whatsapp. LOL, ROTFL! 😁 And between friends, that’s great. With strangers, authorities, customers, and others you may be trying to impress, not so much.

Whether we’re selling product, services, ourselves, or just ideas, we will be judged by our initial offering, usually in writing, occasionally face to face. Showing up for a first business meeting in my chainsaw outfit may not be appropriate. Similarly, offering my services in correspondence that doesn’t get proof-read at least three times, at least once by another set of eyes.

Oddly enough, if the written presentation is tidy, tight, and attractive, most people won’t even notice small typos and extra spaces (but they won’t get past Karen!) If the letter or essay looks “professional” when you see it across the desk, you’re going to get far more forgiveness and respect than one that is poorly formatted. But if it looks good, and reads tightly and persuasively, well, you’re in like Flint.

All these things are equally true for digital correspondence, perhaps more so, because of the contempt-breeding familiarity of the thing. As tempting as it may be to insert emojis and roll-on-the-floor-laughing-out-loud shortcuts into the letter to the bank, restrain that impulse! If you want respect, be respectable, if you want to be taken seriously, write seriously.

Taking the time to make your outbound work smart-looking and finished is simply a way to show respect to the recipient. Which is what we want when it’s coming in our direction. The Golden Rule in every sense.