<p>I have a professor who was just promoted to the chair of my department. He oversees my internship and he oversees my independent study request for Spring 2014. I emailed him the following:</p>
<p>"Dr. X,</p>
<p>Let me know when you speak to Dr. X about the independent study for Spring 2014. Here is my log for the week, however.</p>
<p>Thanks again!</p>
<p>"Swim"cerely,</p>
<p>Justin"
(note: "swim"cerely is here because my internship is in the pool industry and our company uses that to end emails.)</p>
<p>His reply, in my opinion was rude. I felt I was polite and nice when emailing him. I have waited over a month to hear about my independent study request..and was even told by him he met with this professor June 20th, 2013 (which he did not by the way he wrote his emails to me). He copied me in an email when I asked July 18th, 2013 if he had heard anything about it and he said that they still needed to meet.</p>
<p>This reply is what really upset me (this was the reply to my above email):
"Justin:</p>
<p>I will surely let you know after I discuss this with Dr. X late July or early August.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, I would like you to use please before your sentences if you want a reply from me from now on.</p>
<p>Best wishes,
Dr. X"</p>
<p>Does he think he is above me and that I should be bowing down to him? I pay to be in school, and he gets paid by the school to do a job, and in my opinion he is not doing it. Now, I don't think I pay his salary (I know schools get money elsewhere), but I still feel I should be respected. </p>
<p>Was I rude in my email? Should I report this to the dean? He won't reply to me if I don' say "please", but I am not going to bow down to someone for not doing their job and for being polite and patient...</p>
<p>Email makes it difficult to convey tone sometimes. While I read your email as not at all rude, especially bc you thanked him, he may have read it as more demanding. And as your elder and your superior (sorry, but he is), he corrected you on that. </p>
<p>My advice would be to develop a thicker skin bc you will need it when you join the working world. It is often necessary to swallow your pride, suck up to people (even really awful people), and not let it bother you. Suck up to this guy now, write him a short apology (though you didnt do anything wrong, what matters is he thinks you did), and clear this up. You need him more than he needs you. Don’t let your pride get in the way. </p>
<p>Here’s your opener: “Please accept my apology if the tone of my email came across as demanding. That was not my intent. I sincerely appreciate your help with this…”</p>
<p>As an old person(over 50) and professor, I think your tone is a bit flip. Do this for me. And here is my log. </p>
<p>Nova2nola is right about it being hard to judge tone, but from your reaction, I think you need to realize that when you are asking someone to do something for you, it is customary to ask rather than demand. Obviously, you offended the person you need something from, which is never good. If you choose to make a complaint to the dean, rest assured that you will be viewed in an unflattering way. And FWIW, if he is the department chair, he is above you.</p>
<p>I’m confused here…why didn’t you use the word “please” in the first place? Weren’t you making a request for someone to do something for you? You are not his superior, so you are not in a position to make any demand of him whatsoever.</p>
<p>Also, I am not sure I understand how a professor is overseeing an internship at a pool company, but if he is supervising your internship and will hopefully be writing your letters of recommendation in the future–do you really want to be on his bad side, or have him think you have poor manners or lack interpersonal skills? Or just think that you are a jerk?</p>
<p>You shouldn’t have needed to be told to always say please and thank you. He did you a favor by reminding you of that.</p>
<p>If you’ve never really had a relationship with this professor before, I do think your email was a little unprofessional and a bit demanding. To be frank, you should have said please. Do I think he was a bit flippant? Yes, but so were you. He sounds like he was a little offended by what you said (or at least taken aback by your perceived tone), and I think this can be a valuable lesson about trying to be particularly polite and professional when communicating with others in a professional capacity, especially when you’re making a request. If you had known this professor for a while and had developed a friendly relationship with him, then your email would have been fine but you haven’t. People have different levels of expectation when it comes to professional communication, and you should always ere on the side of caution until you have a better sense of how someone else will interpret what you say.</p>
<p>I second the suggestion above to send a polite apology. You may not want to, but that’s what being an adult is all about. He’s not asking you to bow down to him. He’s just saying that you should say please, which you really should do anyway. He could have been nicer about it, yes, but this is a really silly thing to burn a bridge over. Say your sorry. Don’t do it again. Definitely do NOT report this to the dean.</p>
<p>Let’s start over so I can make sure we all understand the situation and the fact that I am not being rude at all to anyone.</p>
<p>May 31st, 2013 my academic adviser advised me to email the chair of the department about my interest in taking an independent study in Spring 2014 so that they would have a lot of time to develop it. So I did. My initial email congratulated him on becoming the chair of the department and then I laid out my interest and asked if he could look into it. He promptly emailed back that he would need to find a faculty member with more expertise in the area I asked about. I promptly emailed him back and told him thank you. He then emailed me again on June 4th, 2013 and said he had scheduled an email on the 20th of June to discuss it and would “revert to” me shortly after. I waited until July 18th, 2013 to ask him about it again. I sent an email that said:</p>
<p>"Dr. X,</p>
<p>Is there any update on this yet?</p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>Sincerely,</p>
<p>Justin"</p>
<p>To which he CC’d me into an email with the professor he needed to speak to stating that they needed to speak ASAP before he could give me anymore information. I was not upset that he had no information, I just wanted to see if he had gotten busy and forgot. Clearly the meeting he scheduled on June 20th either did not happen or it did not end up discussing my request, which I know things happen and things don’t get done.</p>
<p>When emailing my log to him I simply asked to let me know when he talked to the other professor and thanked him again.</p>
<p>The issue is he is a professor, providing a service to a student and a university. Why is asking someone if they could develop a course about a specific topic taking this long? Why do I need to say please when I adequately express thanks in every single email I send him or anyone? I never send an email without thanking the person for whatever I am asking for. </p>
<p>If you think you should use please and thank you for every request you make of someone then I urge you to all remember that when you complain to a manager about a defective product or if an order is messed up. You aren’t that manager’s superior, therefore you should accept what they tell you even if you don’t like it. I am not the type of person to take “if you want a reply from me from now on” lightly…I have been patient and nice about this. I don’t want a recommendation letter from him, I could care less to talk to him again with his attitude. Just because you are “higher” than someone that does not mean you have to be rude to the person below you.</p>
<p>PS: What is FWIW? That is not a common abbreviation.</p>
<p>FWIW -for what it’s worth. You come across in your posts as immature, prickly, and entitled. So I guess I’m not surprised that the head of the department would see you that way as well. I think you need to take a hard look at yourself and your position. You may feel you’ve done nothing to cause offense and instead believe it was you who’ve been treated rudely. However, The person with whom you were corresponding, and from whom you need assistance, disagrees. And hes the only one who matters. I agree with the poster who suggested a nice apology. Don’t make things worse. .</p>
<p>I get that you feel like he was rude to you. He felt like you were rude to him. Frankly, I still feel like you should suck it up and be nice to him. There will be people who offend you wherever you go, and I really don’t think what he said to you was that bad (I don’t think what you said to him was that bad either, but what matters is what he thought). If you feel so strongly about this that you don’t want to let it go, then go talk to him in person about it.</p>
<p>Professors are notorious for taking forever to do things. It sucks, but it may be the professor he’s trying to get in contact with that is holding things up and not the professor you’re talking to. To me, it sounds like they’re trying to help you set up something specific to only you (an independent study), and yes, I do think you should say please and thank you when you ask people to do things for you, even if it’s just a simple “please let me know if you need any additional information or if there’s anything I can do to help.” Some professors are also touchy about being asked repeatedly for things or being send frequent reminders. I’m not saying you did this, but that he might be particularly touchy about it. </p>
<p>If I were you, I would let it go. Get your independent study, and then avoid him. This really isn’t worth making a big fuss over, but if you want to, go right ahead.</p>
<p>You’re taking this way too personally. Just apologize in your next email and add “please” to your questions/demands from now on. It doesn’t matter if you say you weren’t being rude; what matters is that the professor believes you were being rude. You need something from him & he’s doing something for you…just move on. FWIW = for what it’s worth. A fairly common abbreviation.</p>
<p>In my personal experience, I have always been extremely careful about every word I put into a professional e-mail because it is so easy for them to be misinterpreted, like this. I can tell from your intent that you didn’t mean to be rude, but you should always be hyperpolite when e-mailing people that are “above you.” Therefore in this case, you should have used please. You may disagree but from an outside party, this is just the simple fact.</p>
<p>I think you now need to do a bit of damage control and send a very nice e-mail back saying that you apologize if your e-mail came off rude and that you can’t wait to have this meeting or whatever the next step is. Just keep it short and sweet, don’t go onto a rant about how you felt frustrated because of this and that.</p>
<p>If you were one of mine, I’d choose to have a conversation about email, tone and demeanor with you in person, but I can see where your professor is coming from, particularly if you two aren’t close. </p>
<p>You need to be patient though–a month is like nothing in summer professor time. Most of us–especially those of us with heavy teaching/administrative duties during the academic year–have to use the summer to do the vast majority of the research work that we are required to do for tenure and promotion (and that we just plain enjoy!), and this can involve traveling (with spotty access to communication) or just the need to think deeply without the interference of anything else. Furthermore, unless your IS will require setting up an internship and/or the cooperation of a lot of people, most professors are just now beginning to re-focus on Fall 2013 and anything for Spring 2014 will not be at the front of their minds. </p>
<p>Furthermore, if these professors are like me and my colleagues, they may not even be technically “on the clock” during the summer; lots of professors are paid for only nine months of work a year, though most of them have the paychecks spread out over the entire year.</p>
<p>I personally think you should have said please even if you had been emailing your parents. It’s the respectful way to make a request of anyone, especially someone who is older than you. The professor probably felt that you were addressing him as a peer, which he is not. You should write an apology and do as he asks when emailing him in the future. </p>
<p>Don’t report this to the dean. Dr. X wasn’t out of line, so you’ll be wasting your time bringing it up.</p>
<p>You are not his equal. I would have opened the letter with some variant of “Thank you for…” and included “please.” Heck, I use please and thank you with everyone, including DH and my kids, the dry cleaner, bus driver, the guy who hands me a plate of food at a buffet, secretaries and people who have worked for me- and certainly with people who can help me, advance me or do me the favor of passing along a kind word about me.</p>
<p>This guy is not your peer and the relationship not casual. Sheesh. What’s next?</p>
<p>Yes, he is superior to you, and you are inferior to him, in the academic hierarchy.</p>
<p>The tone of your email to him was peremptory and not gracious in the least.</p>
<p>S0—you are asking a professor to set up an independent study course for you (in other words, you are asking him for a favor, potentially one committing him to a substantial amount of work, both in getting the proposal through the proper academic channels, and then mentoring/supervising your progress in the course) ? And when he gently chided you for a lack of professional manners, you take huge umbrage?</p>
<p>If I were you, I would have emailed immediately a heartfelt apology for my rudeness and lack of professionalism.</p>
<p>There is no obligation for your independent study proposal to be approved. if the professor doesn’t think he will enjoy working with you, he may very well choose not to!</p>
<p>As far as your analogy as to returning a defective product to a store manager–not good one to this situation, but anyway-- again, do you fail to use “please” and general good manners? It’s not like the manager at the store manufactured a defective product and is pawning it off on you! You go in politely, you state the problem, you produce your receipt–and the manager takes care of the situation for you. You go in rudely and the manager will always find a way to make things difficult for you. </p>
<p>Remember honey gets much better response than vinegar.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t have written an email that looked like that, but I also don’t think it’s reasonable to take offense, let alone confront someone about it. </p>
<p>Personally, though, I would apologize. I apologize for all kinds of crazy stuff. It’s like “I love you:” it’s free, means nothing and makes people happy.</p>
<p>OP, society in general has become very rude, and you are an example of what I was just discussing with colleagues today. Emails, texts, etc are done quickly without much thought about manners. However, those of us who were around before the advent of email, learned to communicate very differently. We learned how to speak to others face to face, using eye contact, tactful wording even when angry, and plenty of “please” and “thank you”'s to express gratitude and respect. If you haven’t been taught this in your family or schooling, I am sorry. Perhaps you didn’t recognize the modeling that was being done to teach you such communication. Status and position actually have nothing to do with polite communication…I don’t care if you are the President or the janitor, addressing a person politely is expected. “Please” let me know if you speak with Dr. X" is a request. “Let me know when…” is a demand. If you are going to survive in business, you’d better learn this now, and be appreciative of the lesson and take it to heart. I would be grateful the professor was willing to point this out to you. I wonder how many other people you have addressed in such a way that simply thought “What a rude jerk.”</p>