My colleague and team member at work, “Jen,” has terrible grammar and spelling. She often sends out emails on behalf of our entire team to the whole company, or the CEO, or even worse, to clients. Her crappy writing makes everyone on my team look bad. I’m not her boss, so I don’t feel like I can say anything to her. I also don’t want to start an ugly office fight which will inevitably happen if I talk to my boss, because it will get back to her that I complained. What can I do? Can I write an anonymous note and put it on my boss’s desk?
Anonymous note-writing is for pussies. Suck it up and deal with it.
Let’s imagine that your coworker said inappropriate things when you were in meetings. Like, say you were in a meeting with clients, and she said, “This presentation we’re about to make is going to blow your fucking socks off.”
You would say something to her, right? RIGHT?
Part of advancing your career is figuring out how to deal effectively with other people while you climb to great heights on the corporate ladder. Allowing your work to be compromised by someone who can’t write an email to save her life is wimpy. Eventually, you’re going to be in a position (hopefully) where you’re in charge of people, and being in charge of people means having unpleasant conversations. If you don’t want to get her in trouble with your boss, sit down with her and a couple examples of her more egregious errors, explain that you want her to do well and that you think her writing skills are holding her back, and offer to proofread anything important before she sends it out to the group.
If she doesn’t stop, slap your boss on the back of the head and ask her why she’s continuing to let this nitwit drag you all down into her quicksand of shitty grammar and spelling. Office fights can be fun sometimes.
