《ABC News》- No-E-Mail Fridays

redhat028

《ABC News》- No-E-Mail Fridays


After Initial Doubts, Co-Workers Learn to Deal With Each Other in Person

Scheduling a meeting? Send an e-mail. Need that report right away? Send an e-mail. Are there serious issues in the department? Nothing a chain of e-mails can't solve.

The volume of e-mails has exploded in recent years with over 170 billion now being sent daily around the globe, according to technology market researcher Radacati Group. That's two million every second.

But many in business now worry this tool for easy communication is actually making it harder to communicate.

\"Some [e-mails] are very valuable, and some of them are just an excuse not to communicate or to protect myself from something that's going on,\" said Jay Ellison, executive vice president at Chicago-based U.S. Cellular.

Two and a half years ago, Ellison was receiving an average of 200 e-mails a day, many of which went unopened. After getting cyber-indigestion, he sent out a memo to his 5,500 subordinates.

\"I'm announcing a ban on e-mail every Friday,\" Ellison's memo read. \"Get out to meet your teams face-to-face. Pick up the phone and give someone a call. ... I look forward to not hearing from any of you, but stop by as often as you like.\"

The no-e-mail-Friday idea landed with a thud.

\"Jay's insane. He's crazy,\" said marketing director Kathy Volpi, recalling the initial impression she and others had. \"Employees would queue up their e-mails, and then at 12:01 a.m. on Saturday, they'd let them fly.\"

Eventually, the policy won over staff members. Forced to use the phone, employee John Coyle learned that a co-worker who he thought was across the country was, in fact, across the hall.

\"I asked him where he was and he said I'm on the fourth floor, and I said, 'Well so am I,'\" said Coyle. \"We now have a working relationship that is deeper than he's the guy that provides reports.\"

Public affairs manager Tyler Caroll, because of her gender-neutral name, used to get e-mails addressing her as a \"he\" or \"Mr.\" Phone calls on a no-e-mail-Friday changed all that.
\"eople were really surprised that they had a woman's voice at the other end of the line instead of a man's,\" said Carroll with a laugh.

U.S. Cellular isn't the only company curbing e-mail. At PBD Worldwide Fulfillment Services, an Alpharetta, Ga.-based outsourcing company, e-mail-free-Fridays have changed habits throughout the week — e-mail volume is down a whopping 75 percent — and that's helped the bottom line.

\"What I think it's done is make us more efficient, and it's made us listen to our customers better,\" said PBD vice president Lisa Williams.

The trend is seen as a backlash against a corporate \"crackberry\" culture of impersonal communications. Last August, 400 Radio Shack employees received their pink slips electronically. In 2002, now-defunct accounting firm Arthur Anderson dropped the e-mail hatchet as well.

\"I think it's been abused over the years,\" said Ellison. \"We tend to use e-mail as a kind of a tool to hide behind issues versus getting up and talking to people.\"

In addition to being impersonal and tedious, studies show e-mail can also be confusing and lead to misunderstandings in the workplace, particularly with bosses.

\"As a medium, it's inherently ambiguous,\" said behavioral science professor Nicholas Epley of the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business. \"There's not as much information conveyed. The pitch of your voice, the speed with which you say something, the emotional tone that's carried in your voice isn't there.\"

At U.S. Cellular, no-e-mail-Fridays have been such a success that the company recently instituted a new policy aimed at another corporate vice: no-meetings-Friday.


explode: 爆炸；猛增
communication: 交流；通讯
U.S. Cellular: 美国第八大无线服务供货商
cyber-indigestion: 电脑消化不良
memo: 备忘录
subordinate: 下属
stop by: （顺路）访问
land with a thud: 落地时发出闷响
insane: 不正常；精神错乱
win over: 战胜；争取过来
gender-neutral: 中性的
curb: 控制；约束
outsourcing: 外部采购
whopping: 庞大的
the bottom line: 公司的盈利
trend: 趋势
backlash: 反撞力；对抗性反应
crackberry: 黑莓机的别称
pink slip: 解雇通知书
now-defunct: 已经不存在了的
hatchet: 战斧
abuse: 滥用
versus: 与......相反
tedious: 单调乏味的
medium: 媒介
inherently: 固有的
behavioral science: 行为科学
convey: 传达
pitch: 音高；音量
tone: 语气
institute: 制定
vice: 恶习

值得学习的词汇：

memo: 备忘录

insane: 不正常；精神错乱

gender-neutral: 中性的

the bottom line: 公司的盈利
每个公司的会计在财政报告上都要把收入和开支加起来，然后得出一个最关键的数字，也就是这个公司究竟盈利多少，或亏损多少。这就是所谓的bottom line。

例如：Our new cook from Sichuan is bringing in a lot more people. And the bottom line is that last month we made a profit of fifteen thousand dollars.
我们那个从四川来的新厨师吸引了不少顾客。其结果是上个月我们赚了一万五千美元。\"

trend: 趋势

pink slip: 解雇通知书



pink slip也叫做walking papers，可以追溯到20世纪初期，表示“在发给员工的周薪信封里放一张粉红色的小纸条，通知员工解雇的“噩耗”。至于为什么要用粉红色，一方面是为了避免和其他的资料混在一起，以免员工因疏忽没看到通知；另一方面也许是因为粉红色相对比较柔和，可能会对被解雇员工“受伤的心灵”产生一点慰藉作用吧！

现在，电子邮件简单快捷，但是pink slip这种说法，还是保留了下来。

institute a policy: 制定政策