...!!!...!

Apart from answering phones (and browsing around the Internet), what I do most at work is send emails.

I'm used to poor punctuation in emails-- in today's world, there's really no escaping it. In time, even someone like me can become desensitized to the occasional missing period or incorrect spelling of you're.

One thing that's really been driving me bugnuts, though, is the ridiculous overuse of exclamation marks.

I'm not a journalist, nor do I have any desire to be, but I did have a stint as a teen guest columnist for a local newspaper, and one of the first things that we were taught was that exclamation marks are a no-no.

But that aside, I have a personal issue with people giving me a too-generous helping of these marks. To me, an exclamation mark is not unlike a swear word or the shock factor of crashed cars sitting in front of a high school during the weeks before prom: if you use it too much, it stops carrying any meaning. I mean, think about it-- when you hear someone like Chef Ramsey (I mention him for you, Josh) drop the f-bomb twenty times within ten minutes, it stops landing on your ear with the weight it should have.

Apparently, the woman I have to email all day never received that lesson.

It's ridiculous. I'll send her a message that might say, "Hey, can you please check these numbers for me?"

Her response will be, "Ok!"

I'll send, "I didn't get the message about -x-, can you please send me a copy?"

I'll receive, "I'll send it right to you!!" (That annoys me even more, because, clearly, if you're sending me this message, you're NOT sending the message I asked for.

...But I digress.)

Really, I have to wonder if she just uses exclamations because they're the easiest mark for her or if she's actually just THAT chipper.

I'm hoping it's not the latter-- can you imagine how hard it would be to work with someone that enthusiastic?

I can only imagine how she'd deal with news of any real weight.

Maybe something like this?



See more dog pictures here.