Millennial Sales Speak

This blogger is 56 years old and growing up he learned a different form of English than u. We capitalized more and abbreviated less than the next generation, *amirite? As a sales coach, I often receive email messages that are cryptic enough for me to be v concerned about you when I see it (but TBH I don’t worry about it much). I wanted to get your opinion on one of them.

My question for u is this: Does the following email bother you? It came from someone who missed an appointment with me and was responding to my, “Where are you?” message. Have a look:

bill my apologies

i had tomorrow 23 on my calendar. 

i'll rescedule ASAP.

i have customer in town for press checks tomorrow AM so i'll shoot for Friday AM 

Personally, this kind of message goes right up my spine and makes me v angry (as does each and every butchering of the English language contained in this blog). As the father of three 20-something girls, I am no stranger to Millennial-speak. But that doesn’t mean I have to like it.

So tell me, how important is grammar and punctuation? Do you have one set of rules for personal communication and another for business? Is it okay to say something in a text to a friend that gets the message across either phonetically or using words that aren’t perfect but are good enough?

Perhaps this is a generational issue, but my reaction to that email went beyond grammar, spelling (“rescedule”? Seriously?), and saw it as a reflection of the sender’s professionalism and skills. He even CCed his boss!

I could probably pump another 500 words of distress and shock into this blog but I want to stop so that you can react.

Millennials, give me your read on this. Everyone else, go ahead and pipe in as well. Am I alone in my dismay regarding their subject? Am I overreacting to have any kind of reaction at all?

It does not bother me a bit when, as occurred at a full-day presentation earlier this spring, a Millennial said to me, “I did not understand one pop-culture reference you made today.” I'm used to it.

To me, the struggle is real but I want to keep it 100 for FOMO and TBH I suspect my squad reacts the same in TMW millennial-speak throws shade our way.

Oh, and for the record, I used the millennial dictionary to write this blog ... especially that last paragraph. 

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Bill Farquharson can be reached at (781) 934-7036 or bfarquharson@idealliance.org