A lot of career advice for women has been repeated so much (including by women) that it's become conventional wisdom. But how much should we listen to what the “experts” tell us about changing our habits — and changing ourselves — to be successful in a patriarchal society? Let's talk about it today!

What accepted career advice for women do you think should be questioned and challenged? What's the best and worst women-focused career advice you've been given?

Here are two examples of generally accepted career advice to jump-start the conversation — because in the light of 2021 they both seem like bad career advice for women.

“Stop apologizing so much”

Women have been told over and over to stop using words like “sorry” and “just” in their emails and conversations so that they appear more assertive. We're given specific phrases to use instead, such as in this Forbes piece, and there's even a Chrome plugin, Just Not Sorry, that flags your use of “just,” “I'm sorry,” “I'm no expert,” and so on. (Hey, why can't there be an app that highlights the mansplaining-favorite “Well, actually” and instructs men to delete it? It could be called “Just Don't.”)

At first glance, telling women to stop saying “sorry” so much seems like good advice, but the pushback brings up a lot of good points. Journalist Jessica Grose pointed out in The Washington Post that women who say things like “sorry” and “just” have learned that “using speech this way is ultimately more effective [for women]” and quoted the prominent linguist Deborah Tannen, who wrote, “For many women, and a fair number of men, saying ‘I’m sorry’ isn’t literally an apology; it’s a ritual way of restoring balance to a conversation.”

Here's another useful way to think about the “Don't apologize so much” advice, which was expressed by a woman interviewed for this New York Times story: “I get it. Maybe women apologize a lot,” she said. “But the counterpoint is, why don’t men apologize more? Maybe we should stop thinking of apologizing as such a bad thing.”

{related: Are You an Office Mom?}

“Stop using vocal fry” (and upspeak, and so on)

Women aren't the only ones who use vocal fry and associated speaking habits, but we're the ones who usually get criticized for it and accused of sounding unprofessional and just plain annoying (especially, it seems, by older men). We've often been told to avoid vocal fry at work or as a job candidate — in op-eds, by colleagues, and so on. Interestingly, some have theorized that because low voices are seen as more authoritative in general, “perhaps women drop their voices to guttural levels to demonstrate strength, confidence and thus competency.” (Damned if you do, damned if you don't?)

Opinion pieces and articles on the other side of the issue have stated that women shouldn't have to change their voices to be seen as professional and instead can choose to emphasize professionalism in other ways, as suggested in this Fast Company article on making sure that you're heard at work. (It still recommends “lower[ing] the register of your voice,” although it presents it as a non-gendered tip.) This essay in The Cut takes issue with advice that urges women to speak differently and frames it as blaming women for the way they're perceived: “At first blush, all of this speaking advice sounds like empowerment. … But are women the ones who need to change? If I’m saying something intelligent and all a listener can hear is the way I’m saying it, whose problem is that?”

What popular career advice for women do you disagree with? What do you think about the two “rules” above? In general, what do you think is the worst of the bad career advice for women?

Stock photo via Shutterstock.

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How have you been writing your work emails lately? While it's not a new habit, the opener “I hope this email finds you well” — sometimes extended with a phrase like “in these difficult times” — has become so common in the time of coronavirus that it's inspired many funny tweets. One of my favorites: “‘i hope this email finds you,' she threatened.”

(Corporette readers were even devising a drinking game around such phrases the other day!)

The line can sound rote and insincere, but when you consider the possibility that the person you're emailing may be sick, caring for a sick family member, dealing with coronavirus-related mental health issues, and so on, it can feel odd to jump right into the business at hand.

Readers, do tell: How have you been handling this issue in your emails lately? 

For those who don't fit into the categories of coworkers or friends, such as casual acquaintances or people I've corresponded with before, I've frequently been starting emails with a line like “I hope you [and your family] are doing OK.” I feel like it acknowledges the situation we're all in without coming off as “I hope you're doing great!” … because there's a good chance they're not. Really, there's no perfect solution for this. 

Another question: How have you been wrapping up your emails? In pre-pandemic times, unless I signed off with some version of “Thanks,” I often wrote, “Have a great week,” “Have a great weekend,” and so on. Many of us are clearly not having a “great” anything right now, so (to me at least), it feels kind of strange to write (or receive) that message.

My usual email closer is now “Be well” — I can't count the number of times I've written it lately. I hope it seems genuine to the recipients, because it is. “Take care” and “Stay safe” are two other options that I've seen, but they may not sound professional enough for some business situations. 

How have you been opening and signing your emails during the pandemic? Does it depend on whether you're writing to a colleague you already know versus someone you've never met or spoken with before? 

Further Reading: 

• “Hope You’re Well”: Emailing Through a Time of Pandemic [WIRED]
• Will Coronavirus Finally End the Scourge of “I Hope This Email Finds You Well”? [MEL Magazine] 
• Unpleasantries: Don’t Start an Email With “I Hope This Finds You Well” [Observer] (pre-coronavirus)
• 5 Better Alternatives to “I Hope This Email Finds You Well” [Grammarly] (pre-coronavirus)

Stock photo via Deposit Photos / evrmmnt.

The post How Are You Writing Your Emails During the Pandemic? appeared first on Corporette.com.

Update: We stand by this advice, but you can also check out our more recent discussion on rules for work communication.

Here's a fun business etiquette question: Reader S wonders about the best way to end your emails in a professional setting. Do you vary your email sign-off by situation, or do you just use one across the board?

I am a long time reader — your website was incredibly helpful while I was in law school and now as an attorney. I have a question about “closing a letter.” I personally use “Regards,” and a more friendly/warm “Best regards,” when I'm closing a letter or email.

I've always thought it was odd to see “Sincerely yours,” in a professional email as that closing seems overly familiar — but I just saw a letter from a judge, and he closed it “Sincerely yours.”

Wow, interesting question!

How to End Your Emails

Like I said, interesting question — but one that I admit I've pondered also, especially since I seem to recall seeing that my own preferred closing (“best,”) was deemed “cold and antiquated.”

(Sadly, I don't remember where I saw that — maybe in this Slate article?)

I remember years ago getting an email from a fellow lawyer at work who signed her email “xoxo.” This struck me as super odd at the time because she had always seemed like such a cool chick and this seemed to be the email equivalent of dotting her letter i with a heart — but I just brushed it off and assumed she was either being ironic or she was just cool enough to get away with such things.

So ladies, let's hear from you: How do you end your emails? Dotted with hearts and flowers? (Kidding!) Best regards? Sincerely yours? Sincerely? Cheers? Talk soon? (I've always kind of thought of that last one as a threat more than a civil closing, but that's the introvert in me…) Do you have strong opinions on this, or do you think this is yet another example of people policing women's speech, nitpicking, etc.?

Psst: We've talked a lot about business correspondence issues over the years, including when to answer work email at home, when it's ok to reply to a fax with an email, and when to use last names in business correspondence.

Further Reading on How to End Your Emails:

• Email Message Closing Examples [The Balance]
• 57 Ways to Sign Off on an Email [Forbes]
• What Your Sign-Off is Really Saying [Entrepreneur]
• Here is the Perfect Way to End an Email — and 28 Terrible Sign Offs [Business Insider]
• Why Your Email Sign-Off Is More Important Than You Think [Inc.]

Picture via Stencil.

The post How to End Your Emails (And: Do You Think It Matters?) appeared first on Corporette.com.

Does your boss send you emails at all hours? Are you expected to respond immediately to answer work email at home — either in a clear “policy” way or in an unspoken, pissy-but-won't-tell-you-why way? Do you try to draw a line in the sand and purposely not reply during certain hours, even if you get the email? If you're a supervisor or boss, do you make an intentional effort to not send email during nights and weekends? I've seen a lot of friends and readers bringing up this issue lately, so I thought we'd discuss.

{related: do you prefer to stay late or work from home?}

Looking back — the BlackBerry hit the market when I was a second or third year in BigLaw. It was a sea change — before that you had to be sitting at a computer to log in to check your email. I remember feeling like a rebel by setting my BlackBerry to turn off automatically every weeknight from 12am to 6 am, and (gasp!) 10 PM to 8 AM on weekends. 

(I mostly did this because — without fail! — we'd get what amounted to a spam digest alert every single morning at 4 AM. My BB would vibrate loudly on the table in the tiny studio apartment I lived in then, waking me up and causing stress.) 

Now that everyone has an iPhone, though, I feel like it's every industry — no longer just lawyers, and no longer just high level employees. For a while you could refuse to have work email on your phone, but I don't even think that's an option any more, at least for most workers. Of course, a lot of this comes down to “know your office” — as well as “know your boss.”

So let's discuss, ladies. Do you have any tips, tricks, or hacks for dealing with this growing problem of being expected to answer work email at home — e.g., Do Not Disturb settings in Slack, automatic shut-off times, or even Boomerang for Gmail (on the sending side, at least)? 

Work/life balance aside, do you think it looks unprofessional to clients and others to send or reply to email on nights and weekends — have you ever thought to yourself, WTH is this person replying to this at 3 in the morning? Do you attribute personality traits to the person who sends/replies/expects replies on off hours? (For those of you who have coworkers spread around the country and globe, how much has that affected your answers?)

Psst: we've talked about conveying tone in email, as well as all about replying to faxes via email in the past. 

Further reading: 

• New Boss Expects Me to Respond to Work Emails Over the Weekend [Ask a Manager]
• Take Back The Night from Email [WNYC]
• The After-Work Email Quandary [The Atlantic]
• Your Late-Night Emails Are Hurting Your Team [Harvard Business Review]

Pictured. 

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If you want to be taken seriously as a professional, good grammar matters! Particularly for lawyers, where you get major points for knowing your Bluebook and local style conventions, there can be some serious grammar nerds around — and they will judge you if you use “none” as a plural or confuse further and farther.

Even those of us not working with grammar nerds need to get at least SOME grammar rules straight, though!

This is my list of the five grammar rules you must know if you want to be taken seriously:

1. Your/You're
2. They're/Their/There
3. Its/It's — and other general apostrophe problems.
4. Proper use of commas. This a huge topic, but it's one worth knowing well because so many things can go wrong with commas. Whether it's an error like “eats, shoots & leaves” or an error like “I'm coming to eat Grandfather,” they drive me batty. This Grammarly page looks like a good overview.
5. Word choice — specifically as it applies to your industry. This is a pretty open ended suggestion, but in some ways it matters the most! For example, you wouldn't want to work with a First Amendment lawyer who used “slander” and “libel” interchangeably… or a wedding planner who misspelled “stationery.” You should be absolutely sure you understand the meaning and proper usage of any words you use often at work, as well as any terms of art.

Ladies, what does your list of “must know” grammar rules include? Which grammar mistakes bug you the most? (Here's our last discussion on grammar annoyances.)  

Further Reading:

• Eats, Shoots & Leaves by Lynne Truss [$11.93 at Amazon]
• Top Ten Grammar Myths [Grammar Girl]
• Language Myths [Grammarphobia]
• Sorry, grammar nerds. The singular ‘they' has been declared Word of the Year. [Wonkblog, Washington Post]

Pictured: Pedantry FAIL, originally uploaded to Flickr by Tom Beard. 

The post Five Grammar Rules You Absolutely, Seriously Have to Know appeared first on Corporette.com.

MoMA Evergreen Doves

Holiday cards: do you send them? To friends or colleagues or both? What kind of cards do you send, and do you have any rules about it? It's been eons since we last discussed which co-workers get a holiday card!

For my $.02, I think there are two kinds of people: those who send cards, and those who really don't. I'm definitely in the first camp, although I'll admit that the kinds of cards I've sent to friends and family have definitely changed since I've had kids. While I used to send pretty cards from museum stores and so forth, now I go to Shutterfly, Minted, or the like to get custom photo cards.

{related: here's all of our advice about holiday business etiquette}

But I don't send those cards to people I know through the business (and because business is e-based, sending a physical card seems weird anyway!) — and I can't see myself sending them to coworkers in my law school days unless I counted them a friend first, colleague second.

(Over at CorporetteMoms we've talked about whether professional family holiday cards exist — and how to avoid sending what some of my single friends have joked about as “smug holiday cards.”)

As far as rules go, I can't think of a time when I haven't gone with a fairly neutral greeting like “Season's Greetings!” or “Merry and bright!” just for efficiency's sake. I always order a few extra in case someone sends me a card who for whatever reason didn't get a card in the first round I sent them.

So I'm curious, ladies: Do you send cards to friends? To colleagues? What do you think about receiving them? Have you ever received one from a coworker that made you raise an eyebrow? 

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