Business email -comments on the hand writing of another person

[PF4RedFlag]

hi all

Here is a situation that I find hilarious.
My daily duties require me to create docs that need peer reviewing.
One of the guys who does that prefers to kill the trees, to print the doc and use his ink pen(!) to make comments (old school guy, yet not very old)
His handwriting is not the most readable one. The last time when I had to add his comments to my doc I sent back the new version of the doc (MS Word doc)
and I asked him to use the Change tracking which I activated in that document in order to save time. I also mentioned that I had hard time deciphering his notes.
I should also mention that we reviewed the doc together and the guy joked on the fact that in some instances I could read his handwriting while he could not.
That way he admitted it was bad and that was the reason why I allowed myself to make that comment
Two other persons were CCed in that communication

Question for you: in the Canadian culture is my comment considered offending?
I am asking this because the guy himself did not say anything but a more sensitive lady came to me an lectured me about it saying that "you do not do that"

thanks
PF

[hoob]

If your workplace processes require or suggest online document revision and change tracking and need to be able to account for who made what changes, then is is appropriate and objective to instruct document reviewers to use the correct process.

If the quality of his handwriting is preventing you from effectively doing your job, then comments suggesting more care in his manual editing, or a switch to electronic editing, are appropriate and objective.

[PF4RedFlag]

If your workplace processes require or suggest online document revision and change tracking and need to be able to account for who made what changes, then is is appropriate and objective to instruct document reviewers to use the correct process.

If the quality of his handwriting is preventing you from effectively doing your job, then comments suggesting more care in his manual editing, or a switch to electronic editing, are appropriate and objective.

Thanks for the reply
That was my original thinking too.
The speech that one of the readers of my email gave made me reconsider and ask about any possible Canadian cultural tabu.

[Manatus]

I would say that the problem is that you CC'ed other people. There's nothing wrong with telling Bob that it's better if he does it electronically so that it's easier for everyone to read. What you did though was call him out in public, you basically told those other two people that you were telling Bob off, and in my opinion there was no reason to do that.

[Xiaozhuli]

Depends who the person is and who you are: I would say that to a friend, not the boss. It also depends on the tone you use. You seem to be clearly annoyed with this guy not using track change mode like everyone else, and it must have shown.

[PF4RedFlag]

Depends who the person is and who you are: I would say that to a friend, not the boss. It also depends on the tone you use. You seem to be clearly annoyed with this guy not using track change mode like everyone else, and it must have shown.

In my email I did say that I had hard time deciphering his handwriting and I suggested that in order to save time let's use the reviewing system from MS Word
It might have been a mistake that I let other two people read that.

And yes I was really annoyed but I did not say anything other than the above, I was supposed to deliver the document earlier, I was late because of waiting for him. I just waited for him hoping that he will have a couple of comments and we will be done with that. He had lots of comments, not well formulated or organized, nor realistic (he had to strike through his own comments) and the document was a mess.

When I included the others I wanted to implicitly let them know why I was late and why the things have to change.
One of them (a manager) did not say anything. The person go gave me the speech about it was a peer and the "offender" was a peer too.

So bottom line there is no tabu in regards to commenting on someone's handwriting
There seems to be a tabu in regards to criticizing someone in front of the others.

thanks
PF

[spookie149]

Those in glass houses should not throw stones.