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

[obelix]

Writing properly has gone the way of the Dodo bird. I find myself having to "simplify" my language whenever I do presentations as most of the audience doesn't grasp anything more then a grade 6 or 7 level, if that. And this is coming from a french person working in english with mostly english people ;-)

Unless it's urgent, I try to discuss why I want things written a certain way typically by explaining that it's an industry standard or mentioning sources and references. If it's urgent, the heck with it, I do it myself, I'm not paid enough to babysit and train others ;-)

[graculus.livejournal.com]

I think that most of the people who're the worst problem just don't 'see' what's so different between what they're doing and how it ought to be - often we're talking about people who're writing in the same way they speak and it just doesn't work.