Some vice presidents forget that not everybody attends the same meetings that they do

Raymond Chen

There are some vice presidents who forget that not everybody attends the same meetings that they do. When they send email to the entire division, they use buzzwords and acronyms that are not widely-understood. For example, they may mention the great progress that the Nosebleed team is making with DOXLA,¹ but that doesn’t mean much to people who aren’t on the Nosebleed team. Meanwhile, the people on the Nosebleed team probably don’t know what the vice president is talking about when they compliment the Bunion team’s recent breakthough in MT1 alignment.¹ When that happens, I like to send email back to the vice president admitting my lack of knowledge and asking what DOXLA and MT1 alignment are. “I’m sorry, but I must not have attended the right meetings. Can you explain what DOXLA and MT1 stand for?” Often, I find that the vice president doesn’t exactly know either.

I don’t know what DOXLA stands for, but it’s the feature that keeps oxygen at the right level.

I don’t know if the vice presidents ever get the message that they are writing email messages that nobody understands. I suspect they don’t really care. They’re just fulfilling what they believe to be their job duties: making everybody feel good by mentioning something positive about every team in their division.

¹ Dynamic OXygen Level Adjustment, and metatarsal bone number 1 alignment, obviously. (By the way, I completely made those up.)

Raymond Chen

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