10 Business Customs That Must Be Abolished

A few modest proposals. 

In my new book, Works Well With Others: An Outsider's Guide to Shaking Hands, Shutting Up, Handling Jerks, and Other Crucial Skills in Business That No One Ever Teaches You, I survey what I call a “hidden landscape” of workplace behaviors—almost all of them ones worth recommending and celebrating. The firm handshake. The warm toast to a colleague. Eye contact during a meeting.

I believe these seemingly small things are emblematic of greatness and a signal to others that we respect our work and the people we work with. But over the course of writing the book, I kept a running list of customs that I think we should retire from our workplace. 

The Multi-Shake

At the beginning of a meeting in which one group of associates is meeting another group of associates, we often attempt to shake the hand of everyone around the table. We end up looking like we’ve just ended a doubles tennis match. Or a quadruples match. Or a sextuples match. If you’re meeting more than three people, consider shaking the hand of the person nearest you and nodding amiably at the rest. 

Pre-Meeting Business Card Distribution

Similar to the multi-shake, leaving the distribution of business cards to the end of a meeting would make for a smoother start to the proceedings. And we wouldn’t look like poker dealers. 

Unrestrained Exclamation

Due to overuse, the exclamation point is now the new period. In response, the professional community has simply added more exclamation points. The grammarians either need to introduce a new punctuation mark that suggests greater enthusiasm than the exclamation point, or we must resolve to be more discreet in employing it. To that end, in my book I propose the following new meanings for exclamation points:

!: This is so exciting.
!!: This is revolutionary.
!!!: I am literally about to pass out from excitement.
!!!!: I’m serious. I am passing out right now.
!!!!!: I’m in bad shape here. Call 911. I’m not joking.
!!!!!!: No, wait. I’m feeling better.

The Mystery CC

You’re in the middle of an email exchange with a single person, and all of a sudden a name or two or seven appears in the cc line. Who are these people? What is their purpose? What is their agenda?! 

The Permanent Valediction

An email signature involving your name, title, and a pithy quote from Jean-Paul Sartre is one thing. But an email signature that always includes a sign-off like “Best” or “Sincerely” or “Kind regards,” is an indiscriminately formal and positive culmination of a message that you may not want to end in a formal or positive way.

Case in point:

This report blows.
Warm regards,
Rachel
 
Sorry about the burnt popcorn.
My very best,
Stan
 
Guys? Are we meeting? Hello?!
Truly yours,
Jill

The Verbal Email Receipt Acknowledgment

There’s a thing that happens when we run into the sender of an email we have yet to return. We say, “I got your email." And then both parties must talk about the problem that neither of you probably want to talk about—at least not in the elevator or in the kitchenette or in the parking lot. Emailed messages may remain unacknowledged except in cases of extreme urgency.

Conference Call Small Talk

Small talk is awkward in person. It’s borderline chaotic when five people are attempting to make small talk with five other people, none of whom they can see, all while a communication lag of about one second wreaks havoc on the interplay. In conference calls involving more than three people, let’s get right down to business.

Inexplicable Video Conferences

If there is no chart to show, no object to display, no mechanical process to demonstrate, no interpretive dance to be performed, let’s just go with the conference call. Meetings are hard enough without glancing up at yourself and noting that peach is perhaps not the best color for your skin tone. (Maybe that’s just me.)

“Grabbing”

We’re doing a lot of grabbing these days. We’re grabbing five minutes. We’re grabbing lunch. We’re grabbing coffee (Dangerous!). “Grabbing” values speed over substance. Let’s go back to “having” things, not “grabbing” them.

Complaints About Workplace Customs

You want to grab a coffee before your video conference and ask the people in the other location if they got your email all while throwing business cards at the screen? Go for it. Your own sense of what’s right for your workplace will always trump the thoughts of some writer of a LinkedIn essay who doesn’t know you and has never worked in your office. Unless you do the mystery cc thing. That’s gotta go.

Ross McCammon is the author of Works Well With Others. He has been a senior editor at Esquire since 2005, where he’s responsible for the magazine’s coverage of pop culture, drinking, cars, and etiquette.