実践ビジネス英語 ディクテーション (6/2,3)
こんにちは。NHKラジオ「実践ビジネス英語」”Talk the Talk”のディクテーションです。
Lesson 4のテーマは、‘Email Etiquette’（メールのエチケット）でした。Vignetteでは勤務時間外にメールに返信しないことなどメールでのコミュニケーションの留意点などが話題になりました。
“Talk the Talk”では、エイブラハム・リンカーン（Abraham Lincoln）の「怒りの手紙」についても語られます。
Email Etiquette
（S: 杉田敏先生 H: Heather Howardさん）
S: Our current vignette talks about the “7-to-7” rule at A & A: no sending, replying to or forwarding emails outside those hours.
Do you follow any rules like that, Heather?
H: Unfortunately, no.
I think that’s a nice rule, but it’s not really workable for me.
For one thing, I often have stuff to do after I’ve had dinner and gotten my daughter to bed, and that regularly involves sending and answering emails.
I like Lidia Grace’s idea of writing down late-night brainstorms and then sending them later.
That can be applied to work and life in general, not just emails.
For example, I’ve been making a special effort lately to add things to my to-do list as soon as they come up, or as soon as they occur to me.
I’m also trying to jot town ideas, even if they’re just vague “hmm, I wonder if this would work” type of things.
With so much competing for our attention these days, it’s really easy to forget.
Just telling myself, “I’ll get to that later today” or “I’ll write that down in a bit” is a great way to forget until the next day or even permanently.
S: Have you ever heard of boss like Salmans’ who insisted to answer emails on weekends?
H: No, thank goodness.
I have to wonder if a person would have any legal options in that situation.
It doesn’t seem right that someone could force an employee to deal with work-related matters in their off-hours.
But going that route would likely sour their relationship beyond repair.
Salmans probably did the right thing to quit.
S: Alyce Collins recommends never sending an email when you’re angry.
H: Oh, absolutely.
We should avoid doing things in anger in general, and especially avoid creating a written document that could easily be seen by other people.
Who knows how many people we could end up offending?
I completely agree with Collins’ policy of setting something like that aside until we cool down.
I read an interesting article the other day about the so-called art of the unsent letter.
It described, for example, how Abraham Lincoln used to write what he called a “hot letter” when he wanted to criticize someone.
He’d unload his anger into the letter but he wouldn’t send it.
He’d set it aside until he calmed down and then ultimately label it: “Never sent. Never signed.”
The article also quoted a letter like that from President Truman.
Apparently he wrote an unsent letter to the treasurer of the United States that said, quote, “I don’t think that the financial adviser of God Himself would be able to understand what the financial position of the Government of the United States is, by reading your statement.”
S: Ouch. So have there been times when you ultimately deleted an angry email?
H: I tend to not write anything in the first place.
I’m always a little nervous that I’ll somehow accidentally send the thing.
When I write emails, my basic policy is not to put in the recipient’s email address until the very end.
But nobody’s perfect and I could easily make a mistake.
If someone today wanted to write “hot letters” to work out their frustration unseen, I’d recommend literally putting pen to paper.
There’s no chance that will accidentally get sent.
And the act or writing is slower than typing on a key board, and requires more physical effort, so I think that would automatically help us calm down and think things through.
お読みくださり、ありがとうございました♪
