Is typing in ALL CAPS confrontational?
I recently read an article where a lady was fired from her job for typing an instructional memo to her coworkers in all Caps. The company said the memo "sounded confrontational". I often type in caps if I feel something is important, but do not usually intend to be confrontational. Do you feel that the employer was correct by stating that by her typing in all caps that she was being confrontational?
I think firing someone for typing in caps is a rather extreme response, so on that point I would disagree that it was the correct thing to do. S/he should have just had a word with her and let her know that in this modern age writing in caps IS SEEN AS SHOUTING and can come across as confrontational, so may not be appropriate in some circumstances.
I agree, and I think it is annoying but not grounds for a firing. If you won't to emphasize what you're saying then you can use caps, but unless that is the case then you should probably just write normally.
Online, writing in all caps is considered shouting and from an etiquette point of view you really shouldn't do it. If you're a professional writing an instructional memo for your coworkers, there's really no reason why you would do it in all caps.
Without knowing more, I would jump to the conclusion that while her writing style may have been the excuse for firing her, I'm sure there must have been more to the story. It would probably have been a situation where coworkers had complained before and managers felt they needed to do something.
***Updated***
Actually on reading the article, I see that she successfully filed suit against the company. It does sound like her coworkers had complained in the past, but since they hadn't documented and spoken to her about it before firing her for "creating disharmony", the company lost it's case.
Any one interested can read more on it here:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/artic … d=10594014
It's definately extreme and sounds like it was used as an excuse to fire someone they probably wanted to get rid of anyway for other reasons. However, the way we write is a lot more important than we sometimes give it credit for, not just our capitalisation, the words we use and how we write.
How often have you received an e-mail from a co-worker that you thought was confrontational only to realise it wasn't what they meant at all when you talked at lunch?
Writing removes all the body language we use in conversation which leaves us open to be misconstrued in what we're trying to say. This can often lead to misunderstanding and while capitalisation as an example might be meaningless for one, it could be very important to the other.
I think just reading over what you're about to send or post, before you send it helps. Often times I think, oo, that doesn't sound right and change something for this very reason.
by Linda Rawlinson 12 years ago
Pen and/or pencil, or keyboard?When you write, do you prefer the action of handwriting, giving you thinking time and brooding time and chewing the end of the pen/cil time? Or do you prefer the quickness of typing on a computer?
by Diane Marie 14 years ago
I have been a member for about 10 days now, and I can not figure out how to get more traffic to my pages. So far I made 4 hubs. I would appreciate if you would take a look at them, and let me know anything you know about how to make money on hubpages because so far I made...
by Mahaveer Sanglikar 12 years ago
Today no author writes using a pen, but they are expressing themselves by using keyboards. Then why we know them as writers?
Copyright © 2024 The Arena Media Brands, LLC and respective content providers on this website. HubPages® is a registered trademark of The Arena Platform, Inc. Other product and company names shown may be trademarks of their respective owners. The Arena Media Brands, LLC and respective content providers to this website may receive compensation for some links to products and services on this website.
Copyright © 2024 Maven Media Brands, LLC and respective owners.
As a user in the EEA, your approval is needed on a few things. To provide a better website experience, hubpages.com uses cookies (and other similar technologies) and may collect, process, and share personal data. Please choose which areas of our service you consent to our doing so.
For more information on managing or withdrawing consents and how we handle data, visit our Privacy Policy at: https://corp.maven.io/privacy-policy
Show DetailsNecessary | |
---|---|
HubPages Device ID | This is used to identify particular browsers or devices when the access the service, and is used for security reasons. |
Login | This is necessary to sign in to the HubPages Service. |
Google Recaptcha | This is used to prevent bots and spam. (Privacy Policy) |
Akismet | This is used to detect comment spam. (Privacy Policy) |
HubPages Google Analytics | This is used to provide data on traffic to our website, all personally identifyable data is anonymized. (Privacy Policy) |
HubPages Traffic Pixel | This is used to collect data on traffic to articles and other pages on our site. Unless you are signed in to a HubPages account, all personally identifiable information is anonymized. |
Amazon Web Services | This is a cloud services platform that we used to host our service. (Privacy Policy) |
Cloudflare | This is a cloud CDN service that we use to efficiently deliver files required for our service to operate such as javascript, cascading style sheets, images, and videos. (Privacy Policy) |
Google Hosted Libraries | Javascript software libraries such as jQuery are loaded at endpoints on the googleapis.com or gstatic.com domains, for performance and efficiency reasons. (Privacy Policy) |
Features | |
---|---|
Google Custom Search | This is feature allows you to search the site. (Privacy Policy) |
Google Maps | Some articles have Google Maps embedded in them. (Privacy Policy) |
Google Charts | This is used to display charts and graphs on articles and the author center. (Privacy Policy) |
Google AdSense Host API | This service allows you to sign up for or associate a Google AdSense account with HubPages, so that you can earn money from ads on your articles. No data is shared unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy) |
Google YouTube | Some articles have YouTube videos embedded in them. (Privacy Policy) |
Vimeo | Some articles have Vimeo videos embedded in them. (Privacy Policy) |
Paypal | This is used for a registered author who enrolls in the HubPages Earnings program and requests to be paid via PayPal. No data is shared with Paypal unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy) |
Facebook Login | You can use this to streamline signing up for, or signing in to your Hubpages account. No data is shared with Facebook unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy) |
Maven | This supports the Maven widget and search functionality. (Privacy Policy) |
Marketing | |
---|---|
Google AdSense | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Google DoubleClick | Google provides ad serving technology and runs an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Index Exchange | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Sovrn | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Facebook Ads | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Amazon Unified Ad Marketplace | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
AppNexus | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Openx | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Rubicon Project | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
TripleLift | This is an ad network. (Privacy Policy) |
Say Media | We partner with Say Media to deliver ad campaigns on our sites. (Privacy Policy) |
Remarketing Pixels | We may use remarketing pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to advertise the HubPages Service to people that have visited our sites. |
Conversion Tracking Pixels | We may use conversion tracking pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to identify when an advertisement has successfully resulted in the desired action, such as signing up for the HubPages Service or publishing an article on the HubPages Service. |
Statistics | |
---|---|
Author Google Analytics | This is used to provide traffic data and reports to the authors of articles on the HubPages Service. (Privacy Policy) |
Comscore | ComScore is a media measurement and analytics company providing marketing data and analytics to enterprises, media and advertising agencies, and publishers. Non-consent will result in ComScore only processing obfuscated personal data. (Privacy Policy) |
Amazon Tracking Pixel | Some articles display amazon products as part of the Amazon Affiliate program, this pixel provides traffic statistics for those products (Privacy Policy) |
Clicksco | This is a data management platform studying reader behavior (Privacy Policy) |