So, how do you say 'you suck' without upsetting people?

[graculus]

Today's work-related question: is there a relatively non-contentious way of saying "your standard of written English is nothing like good enough for what you're being asked to do"? ;)

In other news, today I got paid for playing with Powerpoint all afternoon. I've been 'volunteered' to help with some training next month and as a result I've been writing training material and translating some of the stuff I've already written into Powerpoint slides. The offer was there to send the relevant information to our inhouse Training department and have them do it, but if they're all anything like A. who is supposed to be coordinating the training in question and who is about as much use as a chocolate teapot, I figured I would rather do it myself.

Comments

[khek.livejournal.com]

I find it amazing how many people really can't write. I thought that it was pretty common to get out of college and know the ins and outs of writing, but I guess I was wrong. My boss has an amazing grasp of people, and can get so many things done, but every time I see something she's written to go out to the public, my fingers just itch to get my hands on it to fix.

Asking questions like "Don't you think it might sound better if you switched to to this?" seems to work for me. Most of the time now I just have the paper handed to me with an "any suggestions?"

[superbadgirl]

The director of communications here has a tenuous grasp on grammar, and by that I mean he can't spell or punctuate beyond the 4th grade level. If he didn't have two grammar whizzes working for him, it would be embarrassing.

People don't even try or seem to care, really. Somewhere along the education line they didn't get pressed enough to do better, I'd imagine, and once a person gets in the habit of thinking it doesn't really matter it's hard to change.

[graculus.livejournal.com]

I don't want to generalise but we do have a number of overseas workers here and while some of them have much better English than the locals, a number of them really struggle when it comes to formal writing of any kind. I guess that kind of thing really doesn't get taught anywhere so how would you ever learn it?

I don't know where the lady I'm really struggling with was educated but I'm pretty sure she did her professional qualification over here and I really wonder how she managed to get it if her written presentation is so sketchy.