This morning’s post was meant to be about the framing bias and statistics and the lecture that I listened to yesterday by David Spiegelhalter (no jokes). But I got as far as the opening paragraph before I got distracted: first by buzzfeed, and then by a team of workmen coming to fix some carpeting. Then I had coffee and started responding to emails. At which point, it felt too late.

But the emailing made me laugh. Because for some reason, curiously, real live professionals are unafraid to add emoticons into emails to complete strangers. Something like:

Hi daar

I was given your contact details by XX, who said that you might be able to help with these financials? My accountant is great, but I could always use a second opinion  ;-P

See attached! 🙂

Kind regards

So-and-so Managing Director

<giant .jpg email signature that my mail client won’t download>

*rolls eyes*

Other Pet Hates:

1. “Tx” at the end of emails. It looks like the hello kitty version of “thanks”, and it sends my crazybitchdar pinging like an incoming missile siren.
2. People replying to an old email thread with a completely unrelated question on an entirely new topic. Because now every new email comes with giant scrolling sidebar.
3. Uncomfortably large email fonts.
4. Lack of paragraphing. Come now.

Then I found this video (unsurprisingly, on Buzzfeed), called “This is what email would look like in real life“.

I laughed out loud.