Come Again?

A few gems culled from the emails and memos of corporate America. If confronted with these examples, the writers would probably say, "That's not what I meant."

" What I need is an exact list of specific unknown problems we might encounter." (middle manager, Lykes Lines Shipping).

"E-mail is not to be used to pass on information or data. It should be used only for company business." (accounting manager, Electric Boat Company)

"Doing it right is no excuse for not meeting the schedule." (plant manager, Delco Corporation)

"No one will believe you solved this problem in one day! We've been working on it for months. Now go act busy for a few weeks and I'll let you know when it's time to tell them." (plant supervisor, 3M Corp.)

"Teamwork is a lot of people doing what I say." (marketing executive, Citrix Corporation)

"This project is so important we can't let things that are more important interfere with it." (marketing manager, UPS)

Two anonymous classics, the first from a cable TV company, the second from a big-company supervisor:

"Next month we'll be upgrading our phone system, so it will be difficult to reach us."

"I need a list of all employees broken down by sex."