FYI: Don't assume your communications are clear!

We had a problem today with one of our SpellBy.com orders: it arrived at our customer's house with the glass broken in 3 places. (It was delivered ground - and sometimes I think "Ground Service" means a package is kicked across the country on the ground - but that's another story.)

First, our customer was exceedingly pleased with the quality of our frame. Besides the broken glass, there was another more pressing problem: she's getting married this Friday - and the frame was supposed to be a gift for her husband. While our frames take a minimum of 3 days to manufacture, I didn't want to disappoint a bride-to-be, so I had to rush this one though production and ship it out overnight -and that included a trip to our framing warehouse to deliver the prints, which I carefully produce and inspect for quality.

In the mean time, my business partner, Kevin, sent an email to our master framer, Jose, so that he could begin assembly on the frame in advance of my arrival (Jose is a fine craftsman - and perfectionist). I promise I'm getting to the point -right now: When I arrived, Jose told me that he was initially shocked when he received the email from Kevin because it was titled, "FYI," which he thought meant, "F$@K-YOU-IDIOT."

Okay, first of all my business partner and I never use that kind of language in business and second, Jose did learn the meaning of FYI ("for your information"), just prior to my arrival by asking someone else at the warehouse.

Anyway, all this got me thinking about the dynamic nature of language and communication - and how we can't assume that what we take for granted will be understood by someone else. In fact, as a consultant, I recall numerous emails that were misunderstood -from sentence structure, typos to a perceived harsh tone (even when there was none).

My advice: don't assume that everyone will understand your grammar, rhetoric, composition, diction or vernacular. Kevin's opinion is: "This is scary," and I'd have to agree.