'Friendly' Notes

Overthinking things is rather annoying.

As it makes me rather stressed out....

So, at work, they've instigated a new policy where you can only write 'friendly' notes if you're leaving notes for your coworkers.

-Not that we left anything mean before this point.

It was basically the

TAKE OUT THE TRASH!!!

Sort of notes.

(as the night people have troubles remembering to do that on occasion.)

But apparently.

That's too....Negative of a message.

Or anything where it's like "Hey do your job correctly."

Isn't wanted in the work place.

We need to be 'Nicer' to each other.

So that there's a better work flow and yadda yadda yadda.

But in my opinion.

Being forced to write "friendly notes" just makes the note come off as passive aggressive.

Not friendly.

The "TAKE OUT THE TRASH!"

Replaced with "Please Remember to Take out the Trash at Night."

(as you have to use Please in almost every note it seems like.)

May sound a little better, but I don't really see it as so.

Just let me say things as I want to say them and leave it at that. Why does it have to contain "please." Why does it need to be 'friendly?'

Who knows.

It just stressed me out.

So today's example of this was the issue of having to write a note for my manager.

As in the evening our closers have a certain section of fish tanks, where we take out all the decorations in those fish tanks and place them in a huge garbage can full of water, to bleach them over night (kill any potential algae growing on it) and then continue the process of cleaning them in the morning.

Which is a task that should be done towards the end of the day.

But according to my manager, the closers are pulling the ornaments too early.

Like around 5pm or so.

Which considering there's still like 4 hours left in the work day....

Isn't quite the presentation we want to give to our customers seeing undecorated tanks.

Nor, in my manager's opinion, is it the best use of their time.

As we do tend to get a lot busier in the evening with customers.

So if one of my coworkers is distracted with pulling out the ornaments....

Then that is one less person helping the customers in the store.

So what my manager wanted me to do was to write a 'Friendly Note' saying that Customer Service is the number one priority and that ornaments shouldn't be pulled out until closer to closing time. (half an hour before we close at the earliest)

Now if I hadn't been instructed to write it 'Friendly' I would possibly have written something like:

"Hey, Manager doesn't want us pulling ornaments until after this certain time. We need to focus on the customers instead."

Doesn't sound too bad right?

But is it "Friendly" enough?

Who knows.

That was where doubts settled in. How to make it sound friendly?

"Friendly Reminder, that we need to focus on customers and that tasks should come second. Please don't pull fish ornaments until after this time."

Could work....but is it too Passive Aggressive?

"Please Remember that customers come first, and that ornaments shouldn't be pulled until after this time."

Is that friendly enough?

Can you see my problem here?

I'm totally overthinking things.

Ugh.

I think I ended up writing something like. "Remember that customer service is the number one priority in the store. We shouldn't be doing tasks while there are customers around. This means that we shouldn't pull Ornaments until after this time."

Which...I still wasn't happy with how that turned out.

Written words can be misread in so many ways in so many different tones.

Honestly.

If the manager had just told me to write a note. Then I could have gone, done, and written it quickly without stressing over it.

Because multiple attempts to make it 'friendly' just irritated me like crazy in the end.

*shakes head*

I don't like these "friendly notes."

Not at all.

-Sarnic Dirchi