Watch what you say, how you say it and who you say it to.
I often forget that my style of humor (dry) often doesn't go over well with others. Many miss the joke or the humor and think I'm either being serious or disrespectful. This is a problem I've had to grapple with my entire life as I encountered new people in school, and now in the workforce.
Well, last week we had some rather nasty weather here in New England... ice, snow, the works. Since I was merely doing online research for my upcoming project (the ASP.NET one), it was work I could actually better do from the comforts of my own home. I had spoken to my boss the day before and mentioned the possibility, which she was fine with as she was planning the same if the weather turned bad. The procedure here is even if you have prior approval, you need to notify your department's administrative assistant so they know where you are in case anyone need you.
Well, I sent the email out that morning to my boss to remind her, my cubemate who seems to worry if I ever don't make it into work, and the dept assistant so they can process it. Since I was out due to bad weather... I titled my email "Oh the weather outside is frightful" and made a light-hearted remark in the email about it. Well, the boss found it funny, cubemate found it funny, but the assistant found it arrogant and disrespectful.
From now on, every email I write will be devoid of any form of emotion, humor etc... Unfortunately emails like those are often read as being "rude" or "demanding" It's a no-win as far as I can figure, and to be honest I don't know if I want to "win" in this case. In the four months I've worked in corporate America, I've been beaten down by red tape, had the managerial rug yanked out from under me in a corporate reorganization, and now I'm having to deal with how to write the most neutral emails possible. I've managed to alienate the most powerful person in the department, the one who manages all our resource requests etc... All with an email that I didn't mean anything offensive by, and which only she took offense to.
*sigh* I sometimes wonder if I'm actually cut out to actually work out in the real world 