25 Exciting Phrases to Spice Up Your Next Business e-Mail
1: "Dear Motherfucker,"
2: "To whom it may concern, as well as the entire company directory who I am cc'ing because none of you care about my time so I don't care about yours,"
3: If you'd like to know why I am sending this e-mail, please consider reading it for fucking once."
4: "If I do not see conclusive evidence of your head being out of your ass in the next 3-5 business days, I will remove it from your shoulders."
5: "Please attach a current headshot and resume: the latter so I can laugh at your alleged qualifications, the former so I can print it out and put it on a dartboard as advised by HR's Anger Management Seminar"
6: "Due to the considerable destructive forces at my command,"
7: "Cc'ing The Pope on this one to keep him in the loop since the magnitude of this clusterfuck is nothing short of Biblical,"
8: "This is the fourth e-mail I have sent asking you to do your goddamn job. The fifth will be attached to a brick hurled through your office window. You do not want to know what the sixth will be, so get your shit together ASAP please."
9: "Please keep in mind that refraining from inappropriate use of the Reply All button is the only thing separating us from descending into complete Lord Of the Flies anarchy."
10: "All, please review the selection of Dilbert cartoons attached below and reflect on how they might be relevant to the current situation and your role in it."
11: "The Carpool Committee has unanimously voted to play exclusively Alvin And the Chipmunks songs in any vehicle you are a passenger in for a month the next time you schedule a mandatory meeting before 8 AM."
12: "The potted Ficus tree by the 4th Floor break room will be taking the lead on this project from this point on since it is more qualified than any of you."
13: "I didn't think I needed to inform everyone that 'accidentally' stapling your balls to get out of Company Spirit Meetings early is against company policy. However,"
14: "Due to recent events, any personal office supplies brought from home, e.g. paperweights, must now be checked with a Geiger counter."
15: "Please be advised that if you reply with a question that indicates you have not read and understood the list of action items below in its entirety, I will kick you in the teeth so hard you will chew with your appendix in the future."
16: "We regret to announce that Sean is now an outlaw and no longer protected by our Workplace Violence Policy. This decision was not made lightly, but the current situation re: the break room microwaves has forced our hand. Cc'ing Sean to keep him in the loop."
17: "Please keep in mind that you are neither the most profitable nor the most important of our clients, and your disproportionate share of billable hours is due primarily to your whininess, entitled attitude, and inability to give a straight answer."
18: "If you feel the need to contact me outside my scheduled hours, please write your issue on a piece of letter sized paper, then roll it up, seal it inside a glass bottle, and cast it into the ocean. This will get a faster response than emailing, calling, or texting me at 1 in the fucking morning."
19: "Team,
As a result of employees being bombarded with hundreds of e-mails after inadvertently hitting reply all, we are now instituting the following change to our e-mail communication policy: to help prevent duplicate corrections, when admonishing a coworker who you feel has used Reply All inappropriately, please make sure to use Reply All as well so the other recipients can see that the responsible party has already been notified of their mistake."
20: "Cc'ing you on every e-mail about this issue due to your record of not giving a shit about a problem unless your time is being wasted."
21: "Please do not disturb the protective circle of salt around the 2nd fridge from the left in the break room, and do not under any circumstances open it without appropriate PPE and an escort from an old priest and a young priest."
22: "After consulting with Legal and HR, we have determined that the ficus tree by the 4th floor break room dispersing pollen into the office environment does not constitute a violation of our sexual harassment policy. Also, please be advised that the ficus tree is female and is not the source of your pollen allergies. No disciplinary action will be taken against it. However, your repeated complaints targeted at the ficus tree based on its status as a plant may constitute a hostile work environment. Please meet with HR ASAP to discuss this further."
23: "Team,
Placing an 'Elf On the Shelf' in any location on company premises or within your home office where it may be able to see, overhear, or access proprietary information will result in disciplinary action up to and including termination of employment. Company proprietary data may not be divulged to any unauthorized third parties, and that includes Santa Claus."
24: "Cc'ing Santa Claus to keep him in the loop on this one."
25: "Sincerely, The Only Guy Who Does His Goddamn Job Around Here."
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Anon wrote: INFJ with weak Fe. Immature FPs can be amazingly noble and loyal at times, but their combination of sensitivity and insensitivity toward others can irritate me. In particular, with my ISFP (now former, I guess) best friend of many years, in response to a question she asked about why I list my educational background (I went to top universities) on dating apps, I mentioned that I want to make it very clear that I value my career (to indicate I won't be e.g. a homemaker).
I realize this may have come off as arrogant or prejudiced. I truly believe that college admissions is very noisy and biased in countless ways, but I also cannot engage with all the people who show interest in dating apps and the goal here was to filter as efficiently as possible. I have observed that some men have a strong reaction to my accomplishments, and I think it’s best to filter that out from the outset - forgot whether I said that to her explicitly at the time.
It's an open question whether listing my education is the best way of filtering for compatibility, of course. She went to a less prestigious university, and has mentioned many times that she is deeply insecure about this. I could tell that she was quite offended (there was a lengthy pause after I said that), and despite 13 years of fairly close friendship she ghosted me almost immediately (it’s been a couple months now of no response). She was also going through a hard time more generally.
I was also very offended in this same conversation that she revealed some very private information to me about another friend of hers and spoke in a condescending manner toward this friend, who was going through a very tough time. Now I feel like my ability to trust her has seriously declined. This is abnormal behavior from her, I should say - she normally speaks of her other friends in a respectful manner and doesn't gossip about them.
She has been insensitive toward me in countless small ways (self-absorption, often being late or flaky, some insensitive comments, although usually when she herself is under stress), though also extremely sweet and caring at times (e.g. sending me encouraging notes on the day of important presentations, sending me a care package when I was going through a tough time, etc.). I don't think she's ever really been healthy as she consistently has sort of a cynical attitude.
I also get the sense that immature Fi types basically cannot handle criticism so am not even sure we can have a rational discussion about these topics. We’ve never really had a ”meta“ discussion about our friendship - there’s a lot that has been unsaid, with silent resentment on both sides presumably. I kind of attempted to ghost her (very immature, I know - not something I would do now) a few years ago, in response to her being very late yet again without an apology. To be fair, she was going through a breakup and was a bit of a mess. However, she was somewhat persistent and we continued the friendship, albeit on somewhat shakier footing.
Conversations with her are not quite as easy as with N types, but there's something special about the very long shared history. I am seriously considering whether to reach out and apologize for the educational pedigree comment, or just let the friendship go. The latter would sadden me - she was the only person outside of my family who was there for me during the most difficult time of my life. As of now, my inclination is toward reaching out to her and at least trying to hear her perspective on why she ghosted me. This would be the first step toward a more "conscious" friendship, which is one of my main goals in life more generally. Do you have any advice on how to best go about salvaging this friendship?
What am I missing about my own blind spots here? From her perspective, I can see that I may have made insensitive comments to her (saying that I am unlikely to go back to school due to the financial opportunity cost, in a conversation when she shared that she is experiencing anxiety due to emptying her savings to do a master's degree). And also being fairly self-absorbed on a vacation we went on awhile back, due to stress about grad school.
I'm not sure it feels totally right to me to apologize for the education comment - I stand by my reasoning that it's crucial to filter out incompatible people from the outset - although I do feel bad if her feelings were hurt at an already difficult time for her. I'm debating whether to bring up in the same message how her violating her friend's privacy weakened my trust in her, or defer that to later. )
[addendum] Funnily enough, though around three months had elapsed since my last message to her, she just texted me and we're planning to meet up sometime soon. So I guess my question is if you have advice on whether I should explicitly raise these topics - me making it clear I don't think less of anyone based on which college they went to, and also express that the way she spoke about her friend made me uncomfortable - and if so, how.
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1) With regard to communication skills: It's not my place to tell people what to do. You have to learn to trust your instincts in social situations, otherwise, you'll never be able to develop healthy Ni+Fe. When socializing, context matters a lot in deciding whether it's the right/wrong time to talk about something. There are no hard and fast rules other than be observant of the emotional atmosphere.
Work your way into difficult topics gradually or tentatively in order to gauge the other person's receptiveness. Being too abrupt/direct reveals your impatience and puts people on the spot, which is more likely to make them close up. Deliberately taking things slow makes difficult conversations go more smoothly because it gives people time and space to reflect and prepare mentally and emotionally.
2) With regard to your blind spots: It's not a crime to want certain things from a relationship or even to hope for them. However, it is unreasonable to expect/demand things from people who aren't capable of giving those things. For example, if I was a parent, of course I would wish for my child to be on their best behavior at all times. But it's unreasonable to expect/demand that children behave like perfect little adults because that's just not what they are, and it would do them great harm to stifle their natural tendency to be active and exploratory.
Relationship expectations should always be grounded in reality. One of the dangers of unhealthy Ni is not realizing when you are disconnected from reality. In the worst case scenario, Ni's idealism mutates into perfectionism, and then that perfectionism gets projected out onto the world in the form of unreasonable standards and expectations.
For example, you said that your friend has experienced certain hardships that account for her negative behavior, so are you still expecting her to behave like a person who hasn't experienced those hardships? You must be, since you still judge her for it. Answer honestly: Do you expect her to live up to some ideal in your head about what she should be? If so, the problem is you.
In a truly close relationship, both people should be mature enough to discuss anything openly and honestly. If that's not the case here, then you have to think more carefully about whether bringing up a problem will help/hurt the relationship. As a general rule, if you're unhappy about how a relationship is going, you ought to discuss it and try to resolve the issue together. However, if the source of unhappiness lies squarely in your unreasonable expectations, the burden falls mainly upon you to change your perspective in order to resolve the issue.
3) With regard to Fe development, there are several aspects to it and your lack of Fe development might produce some blind spots.
a) Empathy: You give off the appearance of empathizing, such as pointing out her good qualities and trying to understand what motivates her behavior, but your empathy isn't real when you just end up passing judgment on her. Your judgmentalness even leads you onto a moral high horse to stereotype all "immature" Fi people. If this is how you're going to apply ideas about type, i.e, to justify and vent about your frustrations, you're doing it wrong. The purpose of learning about different personality types is to foster empathy.
Developing Fe should promote empathy by allowing INFJs to inhabit the experience of others. However, immature FJs with ego development issues often end up twisting the idea of empathy. Perhaps they try too hard to be a good person for ego identity reasons and then empathy easily morphs into self-sacrifice or martyrdom and, eventually, self-harm. The more they sacrifice in relationships, the more resentment builds up, and the more repressed anger and then rage they unconsciously harbor. This makes them less and less empathetic and more and more judgmental over time, which sabotages their original goal of being a good person. The more judgmental they are, the more jaded their outlook, and the more likely they are to conclude that people are bad, adversarial, or even irredeemable, which then justifies continued fixation on people's negative qualities/behaviors in a vicious cycle.
Thus, judgmentalness is a common symptom of Fe development problems. To be in the habit of positioning oneself as "judge" is to like the feeling of being morally righteous and/or morally superior... but only in one's own mind. In reality, a judgmental attitude is the mark of an insecure person. Secure people have absolutely no need to convince themselves of their own righteousness or superiority, let alone try to prove it to anyone.
b) Emotional Intelligence: Judgmentalness is a sign of emotional immaturity. Being immature means you have yet to learn how to set a healthy boundary between self and world, so you are very inclined to believe that your feelings/emotions are caused by others, and this means your emotional stability is always at the mercy of others. Whenever you feel hurt, disappointed, jealous, resentful, angry, etc, you don't take responsibility for how you generated that feeling and, instead, look for someone/something to blame.
To blame is to be morally judgmental. People like to blame because it feels good; it feels as though you're righting a wrong when you identify the source of wrongdoing. In reality, blame only feels good because people willfully ignore its downsides.
For one, the longer you allow yourself to live in a blaming mindset, the easier and easier it becomes to justify bitter, cynical, harsh, aggressive, controlling, manipulative, vindictive, cruel, and even violent thoughts and behaviors. People don't start out life wanting to be a bad person. They become so when they aren't aware that their judgment process is increasingly fueled by negative emotions like resentment and anger, thereby opening up the space for dark traits to eventually take over.
The other downside of blame is that it severs connection, so it's basically poison to relationships. Casting blame is like barking a demand. You didn't like what the other person did, so you demand that they change and behave as you want them to, which puts them on the spot of either submitting (which foments resentment) or resisting (which foments anger). Since FJs really dislike open and naked conflict, they may resort to blaming people silently, believing that it has no real-world effect. However, it still motivates you to detach. In a close relationship, emotional distance or coldness is easily felt.
c) Fairness and Equality: Conflict is inevitable in close relationships, so it's important to accept the fact rather than try to avoid or resist it. Different people have different needs, desires, goals, and aspirations, so there's bound to be some disagreement that sparks conflict. What matters most is whether you can handle conflict in an objective way that allows both people to walk away feeling as though they were heard, understood, and treated fairly.
Being judgmental means you're not being fair because it's really just about projecting and venting your feelings and emotions. Thus, it makes your view of things too one-sided. If you approach the conflict resolution process with judgmentalness, you immediately put the other person on the defensive and at risk of judging you back in an attempt to "even the score". What happens then? Warfare.
When two people disagree, it should be accepted as normal, acceptable, and something that needs to be worked out through proper communication. When your emotional needs aren't being met in the relationship, take responsibility for them rather than blaming the other person, and discuss ways to move forward in way that both people can live with. See the article in the site index about Communicating Through Conflict for more detail.
d) Compassion, Generosity, and Magnanimity: These things come as you work to improve your capacity for empathy.
- Empathy allows you to feel the suffering of others, which motivates you to treat them with kindness and compassion, in order to alleviate some of that suffering. Observe yourself carefully when you're feeling judgmental and blame-y, is there still space left for kindness and compassion in you? You can't have it both ways, so choose the person you'd rather be.
- Mature FJs understand the concept of emotional needs: what they are, how to read them, how to fulfill them, and what happens when they go unfulfilled. They attend to everyone's emotional needs because they understand that doing so will improve spirits and make it far easier for people to grow closer and cooperate (harmony).
It doesn't matter what type you are, if you grew up in an environment that didn't recognize and honor emotional needs (which is true for a lot of people), you're more likely to be an emotionally "stingy" person and view relationships as win/lose competitions. Emotionally stingy people tend to view love as something they get (to fill the void within) rather than something they generate (for transforming their entire way of being). Emotionally stingy people are: unwilling to give others the benefit of the doubt, ignorant about how to meet emotional needs, and unwilling to devote energy to anything larger than themselves. But an emotionally deprived upbringing can be reversed in adulthood by actively nurturing emotional generosity.
Emotional generosity is about the willingness to give and not expect something in return other than to feel the simple joy of seeing someone else satisfied. This is a concept FJs often struggle with. They understand that when you expect something in return for giving, you aren't really being motivated by generosity. If generosity isn't the motivation, then it must be selfishness, right? Wrong.
Everyone has emotional needs, including you. Are you able to accept that you're human and have needs? Perfectionist INFJs aren't. It is important to attend to emotional needs in order to feel truly fulfilled in life. What's most important is how you go about getting your needs met. You have to be assertive to work for the things you need in life or ask for them when you aren't able to get them for yourself.
However, many FJs struggle with assertiveness because they have trouble acknowledging their own needs, so, instead, they give a lot to others in secret hopes of getting something back. And this is how they get into relationship trouble. This goes back to the idea of setting healthy boundaries between self and others. Getting what you need should not be too entangled with giving others what they need because it might produce a conflict of interest where you're forced to choose between yourself or others.
- When you learn to be more emotionally generous, you also become more magnanimous. This means you are able to keep your eye on the bigger picture, e.g.: of what kind of person you aspire to be, of what value a relationship truly has in your heart, of what your existence contributes to the larger fabric of society. Armed with a broader vision of life (which also relates to Ni development), you become a much more giving and forgiving person because you don't fixate on meaningless details or get distracted by trivial matters.
One thing I've observed over and over again is, when you ask people who are estranged from formerly close friends/family about "The Fight" that ended things, they often can't remember exactly what it was about. What does that tell you? It tells you that small-mindedness and pettiness often get in the way of love. Only with time and distance (i.e. the bigger picture) do they realize how insignificant the conflict really was and how pathetic it was to break up a relationship over something so minor. But, at the time of the break up, it seemed to them like the world was ending.
Are you guilty of small-mindedness? Are you so narrow in your focus in relationships that you're unable to see the bigger picture and then waste energy sweating all the small stuff? This goes back to the idea of expectations. If you're the kind of person who feels compelled to remake the world to match your ideal images, you're not going to do well in relationships. And if you are this kind of person, why? Usually, it is because of insecurity or self-loathing. If there are aspects of yourself that you deem unworthy of love and are constantly trying to disown/remove, how are you going to be accepting of these aspects when you see them out there in the world in other people?
To love is to accept someone as is. To love is to appreciate every aspect of someone because all their aspects are important for making them who they are. Before you think about how to filter people out of your dating pool, perhaps you should reflect on whether you are truly capable of love, which starts with being able to embrace and love all of yourself. If you're not capable of love, it doesn't matter who you meet, does it? Even if your perfect soulmate were to magically drop into your lap, you wouldn't be able to truly see and appreciate them anyway.
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