Find Megan's books on:
100 of Your Toughest Business Emails: Solved
Plug and Play Ideas From a Seasoned Corporate Communications Manager
Even the savviest office workers struggle with awkward, sticky and downright tricky business emails. How do I politely tell a colleague that their request isn’t my job? What do I say when I’m behind schedule or over budget? What if I hate working with that person? 100 of Your Toughest Business Emails: Solved has all these answers, and more, from an experienced Corporate Communications Manager.
Most business people, aside from executives, don’t have the luxury of leaving their most critical business emails in the hands of trained professionals.
What about the rest of us?
In 100 of Your Toughest Business Emails: Solved: Plug and Play Ideas From a Seasoned Corporate Communications Manager, author Megan Sharma draws on her years of experience as a professional ghostwriter for a fast-paced IT company to help others who may struggle with word choice in business emails.
The language of corporate America is complex and often filled with potential landmines, which Sharma helps readers stealthily avoid.
100 of Your Toughest Business Emails: Solved outlines questions to ask yourself before hitting ‘Send’, and provides concrete examples in six categories:
1. The Work
2. Spill It! (Questions)
3. Survey Says… (Answers or Statements)
4. Co-Workers
5. Gripes (Complaints)
6. All the Feels (Feelings)
Readers need only find the sentiments for what they wish to say and then choose an appropriate alternative from Sharma’s curated lists.
For anyone who sends email in our ever-globalizing working world, this is crucial guide.
Most business people, aside from executives, don’t have the luxury of leaving their most critical business emails in the hands of trained professionals.
What about the rest of us?
In 100 of Your Toughest Business Emails: Solved: Plug and Play Ideas From a Seasoned Corporate Communications Manager, author Megan Sharma draws on her years of experience as a professional ghostwriter for a fast-paced IT company to help others who may struggle with word choice in business emails.
The language of corporate America is complex and often filled with potential landmines, which Sharma helps readers stealthily avoid.
100 of Your Toughest Business Emails: Solved outlines questions to ask yourself before hitting ‘Send’, and provides concrete examples in six categories:
1. The Work
2. Spill It! (Questions)
3. Survey Says… (Answers or Statements)
4. Co-Workers
5. Gripes (Complaints)
6. All the Feels (Feelings)
Readers need only find the sentiments for what they wish to say and then choose an appropriate alternative from Sharma’s curated lists.
For anyone who sends email in our ever-globalizing working world, this is crucial guide.
Here's a sneak preview of my book on love and modern medicine, coming July 17, 2018:
Memoirs of a Surgeon's Wife:
I'm Throwing Your Damn Pager into the Ocean
*Note: All content is copyright protected
Hello! Let’s get acquainted
My name is Megan. I’m just a girl who fell in love with and married a doctor. A surgeon, to be precise. Of course, as a girl growing up in America, I’ve seen my fair share of romantic comedies and TV shows featuring alluring doctor heroes with impeccable pearly whites, like “The Wedding Planner” and “Scrubs”. Yet, I never targeted getting hitched to an M.D. as one of my life goals. It just wasn’t on the radar. That is, until I met my now husband. But I’ll tell you more about that later. First, let me bore you ever so briefly with a little background on me and how I came to write this book.
I’ve been writing since I was a little kid circa age 10, when there was no such thing as a ‘tween’ and the only computer font available was neon green on a black screen. It’s been a near lifelong infatuation, so I am especially psyched out of my mind to have published this book. I am doing rock star scissor kicks while wearing snakeskin pants in my imagination at this very moment.
I have a natural sense of curiosity which was further magnified and honed by my education in journalism. As such, you will notice that this book contains many different tones and topics related to life on the inside of modern medicine. While reading, you should expect to laugh one minute and gather all your righteous indignation for a serious topic the next.
At some point in my career, which has ranged from government and politics to corporate marketing and communications, I decided, you know what? I don’t want to write almost exclusively in acronyms anymore. I don’t care about how best to position some slippery technology concept. Let’s go ahead and broaden that horizon: I want to write about what I want to write about.
Great. Certainly admirable. But, where to start?
Well, I don’t know enough about vampires or wizards to make a name for myself (damn you, Stephenie Meyer and J. K. Rowling! You have a monopoly!). I know a little. Not enough for a book deal.
What I am intimately familiar with, big shocker here, is my own life. And my life involves the life of my husband, who is a surgeon, and our life together as a married couple.
Over the years we’ve laughed, cried, cringed, and told shocking stories to all of our friends and family. One day in October 2013 I literally woke up feeling inspired (how rare and wonderful is that?) and decided, why not share our story with the world, so that you, too, can have a good belly laugh, and then make a mental note to ask your surgeon if they’ve been sleeping enough lately?
My name is Megan. I’m just a girl who fell in love with and married a doctor. A surgeon, to be precise. Of course, as a girl growing up in America, I’ve seen my fair share of romantic comedies and TV shows featuring alluring doctor heroes with impeccable pearly whites, like “The Wedding Planner” and “Scrubs”. Yet, I never targeted getting hitched to an M.D. as one of my life goals. It just wasn’t on the radar. That is, until I met my now husband. But I’ll tell you more about that later. First, let me bore you ever so briefly with a little background on me and how I came to write this book.
I’ve been writing since I was a little kid circa age 10, when there was no such thing as a ‘tween’ and the only computer font available was neon green on a black screen. It’s been a near lifelong infatuation, so I am especially psyched out of my mind to have published this book. I am doing rock star scissor kicks while wearing snakeskin pants in my imagination at this very moment.
I have a natural sense of curiosity which was further magnified and honed by my education in journalism. As such, you will notice that this book contains many different tones and topics related to life on the inside of modern medicine. While reading, you should expect to laugh one minute and gather all your righteous indignation for a serious topic the next.
At some point in my career, which has ranged from government and politics to corporate marketing and communications, I decided, you know what? I don’t want to write almost exclusively in acronyms anymore. I don’t care about how best to position some slippery technology concept. Let’s go ahead and broaden that horizon: I want to write about what I want to write about.
Great. Certainly admirable. But, where to start?
Well, I don’t know enough about vampires or wizards to make a name for myself (damn you, Stephenie Meyer and J. K. Rowling! You have a monopoly!). I know a little. Not enough for a book deal.
What I am intimately familiar with, big shocker here, is my own life. And my life involves the life of my husband, who is a surgeon, and our life together as a married couple.
Over the years we’ve laughed, cried, cringed, and told shocking stories to all of our friends and family. One day in October 2013 I literally woke up feeling inspired (how rare and wonderful is that?) and decided, why not share our story with the world, so that you, too, can have a good belly laugh, and then make a mental note to ask your surgeon if they’ve been sleeping enough lately?
I'm throwing your damn pager into the ocean
Have you ever fantasized about destroying an electronic nemesis, such as a laptop, cell phone, or set of Rosetta Stone disks? Sure, you have. Let me tell you a little bit about the object of my evilest energy: the pager.
Firstly, a pager (Bellis, About.com History of Pagers and Beepers, 2013) is a “dedicated radio frequency device that allows the pager user to receive messages broadcast on a specific frequency over a special network of radio base stations.” I feel the need to include this definition for those readers born after 1990.
Here’s how it works: one person sends a message, usually by phone, to the pager of the other person. The person carrying the pager hears a loud beep or feels a vibration that lets them know they have a message, or page. Then, the receiver sees the phone number or text message on a tiny little pager screen. Et, voilà.
My husband uses a one-way pager, which means there is practically no limit to the number of pages he can receive (okay, that’s a lie, it can store up to 19 at a time), but he cannot respond directly from the pager itself—he must call or track the person down like a bounty hunter.
And who do medical professionals and their loved ones the world over have to thank for this glorious invention? That would be a Mr. Al Gross, who patented the very first telephone pager that was used by the Jewish Hospital in New York starting in 1950. (Bellis, 2013) This was not a widely available technology until it was approved by the FCC for public use in 1958.
Motorola was the brand that started it all in 1959 and even coined the name “pager”. Two decades and some change later, there were 3.2 million pager users worldwide. By 1994, more than 61 million pagers were in use and pagers were popular for personal use. (About.com History of Pagers and Beepers)
Today, hospitals use pagers for their reliability and simplicity in an environment where cell phone coverage is often weak. You will even find flashy red beepy pagers at The Cheesecake Factory, which lets salivating customers know that their table awaits.
For those of you who have not experienced the sound of a pager going off at 2:47 am while you are relishing your REM cycle, let me break it down for you. It’s like this: a jack hammer angrily drilling into a fleet of fire trucks filled with a legion of the undead.
In fact, it is my belief that if zombies were to harness the power of the pager, they could successfully irritate and exasperate all of humanity into submission, and we would beg them for sweet relief. It is not enjoyable.
Pages also seem to go off at exactly the most inconvenient time possible.
For example, after you have spent hours preparing a meal that was researched extensively on Pinterest and Food Network.com, and you finally sit down at the table to consume your edible masterpiece.
Typically, that page will come in riiiiighhhhhtttt as you pick up your fork for that very first bite. I don’t know about other spouses out there, but I will generally dig right in when this happens. My appetite waits for no one. I do feel a tiny bit guilty about it, though. The good news is, my husband is a record-breaking speed eater. He could be on the phone for a good 15 minutes while I am eating, and still clean his plate before I can even think about what’s for dessert.
Pages are also likely to interrupt a hasty shower after a 16-hour day or any sort of bathroom trip. A home catheter would be practical, but just too gross to truly consider.
Since each of these interruptions have happened hundreds of times over the better part of a decade, it’s only natural that a teeny bit of beeper resentment would begin to well up.
I’ve dreamed of how I would exact a satisfying revenge on my electronic antagonist:
Have you ever fantasized about destroying an electronic nemesis, such as a laptop, cell phone, or set of Rosetta Stone disks? Sure, you have. Let me tell you a little bit about the object of my evilest energy: the pager.
Firstly, a pager (Bellis, About.com History of Pagers and Beepers, 2013) is a “dedicated radio frequency device that allows the pager user to receive messages broadcast on a specific frequency over a special network of radio base stations.” I feel the need to include this definition for those readers born after 1990.
Here’s how it works: one person sends a message, usually by phone, to the pager of the other person. The person carrying the pager hears a loud beep or feels a vibration that lets them know they have a message, or page. Then, the receiver sees the phone number or text message on a tiny little pager screen. Et, voilà.
My husband uses a one-way pager, which means there is practically no limit to the number of pages he can receive (okay, that’s a lie, it can store up to 19 at a time), but he cannot respond directly from the pager itself—he must call or track the person down like a bounty hunter.
And who do medical professionals and their loved ones the world over have to thank for this glorious invention? That would be a Mr. Al Gross, who patented the very first telephone pager that was used by the Jewish Hospital in New York starting in 1950. (Bellis, 2013) This was not a widely available technology until it was approved by the FCC for public use in 1958.
Motorola was the brand that started it all in 1959 and even coined the name “pager”. Two decades and some change later, there were 3.2 million pager users worldwide. By 1994, more than 61 million pagers were in use and pagers were popular for personal use. (About.com History of Pagers and Beepers)
Today, hospitals use pagers for their reliability and simplicity in an environment where cell phone coverage is often weak. You will even find flashy red beepy pagers at The Cheesecake Factory, which lets salivating customers know that their table awaits.
For those of you who have not experienced the sound of a pager going off at 2:47 am while you are relishing your REM cycle, let me break it down for you. It’s like this: a jack hammer angrily drilling into a fleet of fire trucks filled with a legion of the undead.
In fact, it is my belief that if zombies were to harness the power of the pager, they could successfully irritate and exasperate all of humanity into submission, and we would beg them for sweet relief. It is not enjoyable.
Pages also seem to go off at exactly the most inconvenient time possible.
For example, after you have spent hours preparing a meal that was researched extensively on Pinterest and Food Network.com, and you finally sit down at the table to consume your edible masterpiece.
Typically, that page will come in riiiiighhhhhtttt as you pick up your fork for that very first bite. I don’t know about other spouses out there, but I will generally dig right in when this happens. My appetite waits for no one. I do feel a tiny bit guilty about it, though. The good news is, my husband is a record-breaking speed eater. He could be on the phone for a good 15 minutes while I am eating, and still clean his plate before I can even think about what’s for dessert.
Pages are also likely to interrupt a hasty shower after a 16-hour day or any sort of bathroom trip. A home catheter would be practical, but just too gross to truly consider.
Since each of these interruptions have happened hundreds of times over the better part of a decade, it’s only natural that a teeny bit of beeper resentment would begin to well up.
I’ve dreamed of how I would exact a satisfying revenge on my electronic antagonist:
- Hop on the Washington State Ferry to Bainbridge Island and slingshot the pager into the Puget Sound, preferably aimed at a loudmouthed seagull for extra points (PETA, if you are reading this, don’t you have better things to do? What, are you related to that seagull?).
- Lie in wait in our condo garbage area, hiding in or behind the dumpster, as required. On the pickup day, distract the driver and then slide the pager under the wheel of the gargantuan lime green and orange garbage truck. Listen for a plastic-y crunch. Success!
- A baseball bat, an empty field. You’ve seen “Office Space”.
- Drop it from the Space Needle, preferably not onto the neighboring Chihuly Glass Garden. That’s not in the budget.
- Replace any reasonable 30-something person’s smart phone with a pager for just one day. That way, you know the deed will be done and you don’t have to get your hands dirty.
The reality of being 'on call'
Rather than explaining in detail the rather obvious reality of what it means to be ‘on call’, I would like to offer some advice for residents on what NOT to do while on call.
Rather than explaining in detail the rather obvious reality of what it means to be ‘on call’, I would like to offer some advice for residents on what NOT to do while on call.
- Staff a telethon for a beloved charity
- Enter a hot dog eating contest, and win
- Catch up with a verbose grandmother
- Take a long, luxurious bubble bath
- Cook your way through Julia Child’s “Mastering the Art of French Cooking” and then blog about it
- Hike in terrain outside of cell phone range
- Retrieve a distant relative with dubious accommodation plans from the airport
- Attempt to get a killer deal at the local used car dealership
- Go on a city-wide pub crawl
- Audition for a TV endorsement deal for a hot new dietary supplement
12-hour surgeries and denying essential bodily functions
Let’s get one thing straight: I cannot do anything when I am hungry. The mere idea of food pervades my every sense and thought, and prevents me from achieving any real form of productivity. I can’t write when I’m hungry, I can’t respond to email when I am hungry, I can’t even shop for rain boots on Zappos when I am hungry. The situation must be dealt with in the form of a protein bar or a delightfully sweet yogurt before the ordinary pace of life may proceed.
To me, as an active and frequent consumer of nutritional substance, it’s pretty mind-boggling to imagine a 12-hour fast that represents only 75 percent of an average work day, never mind spending this 12 hours on my feet, in active concentration, trying not to kill someone while removing CANCER from their body.
Are you kidding me???
That’s the reality of being a surgeon, folks. While not all surgeries last 12 hours, a series of several shorter surgeries (3-5 hours each) can easily consume an entire day. Add clinic patients to the mix and the fact that emails and pages never stop, and you’ve got one self-denying human robot.
Not only do surgeons regularly deny themselves (at a minimum) lunch and dinner at remotely appropriate times, they also abandon the idea of hydration.
What goes in must come out, right?
My bladder could not be more undisciplined, as my friends and family will readily tell you. Expect multiple disruptions if you choose to shop a Black Friday sale with me, or road trip in excess of 120 minutes.
It makes me feel guilty that at my ordinary nine-to-five-er, I always keep at least two beverages at my desk: water and an Americano before 11:00 am, water and black tea from 11:00 am-1:00 pm, and water and Diet Coke or Pepsi from 1:00 pm onward. Naturally curious minds may intuit the results of this one-woman liquid refreshment parade: I have to pee, constantly!
It would astound me to have peed any less than once every hour while on the job.
So, the next time you pop the top on that third Mountain Dew of the work day, think of the surgeons in your local hospital, hoping to sweat out the urge to pee.
Let’s get one thing straight: I cannot do anything when I am hungry. The mere idea of food pervades my every sense and thought, and prevents me from achieving any real form of productivity. I can’t write when I’m hungry, I can’t respond to email when I am hungry, I can’t even shop for rain boots on Zappos when I am hungry. The situation must be dealt with in the form of a protein bar or a delightfully sweet yogurt before the ordinary pace of life may proceed.
To me, as an active and frequent consumer of nutritional substance, it’s pretty mind-boggling to imagine a 12-hour fast that represents only 75 percent of an average work day, never mind spending this 12 hours on my feet, in active concentration, trying not to kill someone while removing CANCER from their body.
Are you kidding me???
That’s the reality of being a surgeon, folks. While not all surgeries last 12 hours, a series of several shorter surgeries (3-5 hours each) can easily consume an entire day. Add clinic patients to the mix and the fact that emails and pages never stop, and you’ve got one self-denying human robot.
Not only do surgeons regularly deny themselves (at a minimum) lunch and dinner at remotely appropriate times, they also abandon the idea of hydration.
What goes in must come out, right?
My bladder could not be more undisciplined, as my friends and family will readily tell you. Expect multiple disruptions if you choose to shop a Black Friday sale with me, or road trip in excess of 120 minutes.
It makes me feel guilty that at my ordinary nine-to-five-er, I always keep at least two beverages at my desk: water and an Americano before 11:00 am, water and black tea from 11:00 am-1:00 pm, and water and Diet Coke or Pepsi from 1:00 pm onward. Naturally curious minds may intuit the results of this one-woman liquid refreshment parade: I have to pee, constantly!
It would astound me to have peed any less than once every hour while on the job.
So, the next time you pop the top on that third Mountain Dew of the work day, think of the surgeons in your local hospital, hoping to sweat out the urge to pee.
Let's review what kind of talk is appropriate at the dinner table
The dinner table. Setting for laughter, sharing a meal, recapping the day that is now in past tense, and making decisions.
Until we bought our new house complete with dining room, ours was a cute little four-person glass table, IKEA 2008. It was nothing special, but it fit perfectly in our open concept living room-kitchen-dining area in Seattle and Pittsburgh.
We added pizazz with a set of cherry red dining chairs from Crate and Barrel, each with a price tag exceeding the cost of the original table and its four corresponding POS chairs. Thank you, wedding registry discount! I just couldn’t stand fixing the tie-on chair pads (that’s right, probably the same ones at your grandmother’s house!) for the three thousandth time.
This table was not used exclusively for dining. In fact, it was multi-purpose and accommodated me when I worked from home, became by miniature art studio when I created oil paintings, and was generally a clean surface to throw things on.
From time to time, *some* people in our household seem to develop a keen lack of social understanding of what kind of talk is appropriate at the dinner table.
Examples of things I prefer not to hear about during the evening meal:
While I recognize that these are equivalent to my thrilling tales of mind-numbing meetings and variations on the standard nonfat cappuccino, I just can’t stomach the surgeon’s ‘shop talk’ while eating.
The dinner table. Setting for laughter, sharing a meal, recapping the day that is now in past tense, and making decisions.
Until we bought our new house complete with dining room, ours was a cute little four-person glass table, IKEA 2008. It was nothing special, but it fit perfectly in our open concept living room-kitchen-dining area in Seattle and Pittsburgh.
We added pizazz with a set of cherry red dining chairs from Crate and Barrel, each with a price tag exceeding the cost of the original table and its four corresponding POS chairs. Thank you, wedding registry discount! I just couldn’t stand fixing the tie-on chair pads (that’s right, probably the same ones at your grandmother’s house!) for the three thousandth time.
This table was not used exclusively for dining. In fact, it was multi-purpose and accommodated me when I worked from home, became by miniature art studio when I created oil paintings, and was generally a clean surface to throw things on.
From time to time, *some* people in our household seem to develop a keen lack of social understanding of what kind of talk is appropriate at the dinner table.
Examples of things I prefer not to hear about during the evening meal:
- Bodily expulsions or leakages
- Reasons for changing scrubs mid-day
- Squirting, pumping, or spraying blood patterns
- Things that can be accomplished with a hand saw
- Interesting uses for redundant thigh tissue
While I recognize that these are equivalent to my thrilling tales of mind-numbing meetings and variations on the standard nonfat cappuccino, I just can’t stomach the surgeon’s ‘shop talk’ while eating.
About the Author: Megan Sharma
Megan Sharma is an author, writing professional, and former Corporate Communications Manager for a fast-paced IT consulting firm in Seattle. In 2015, the same year she moved cross-country (again!) and became a mother, Megan traded her 9:00 to 5:00 for calling the shots in her own writing career. Megan publishes a weekly blog, The Savvy Surgeon’s Wife, and offers cool freebies to her email subscribers, including a new e-book: "100 of Your Toughest Business Emails: Solved".
When she isn’t writing (a rare occurrence), Megan enjoys globetrotting with her surgeon hubby and daughter, cooking and eating delicious food, photography, and Zumba. After spending 30 years on the West Coast, Megan now lives in Central Illinois with her family.
Megan Sharma is an author, writing professional, and former Corporate Communications Manager for a fast-paced IT consulting firm in Seattle. In 2015, the same year she moved cross-country (again!) and became a mother, Megan traded her 9:00 to 5:00 for calling the shots in her own writing career. Megan publishes a weekly blog, The Savvy Surgeon’s Wife, and offers cool freebies to her email subscribers, including a new e-book: "100 of Your Toughest Business Emails: Solved".
When she isn’t writing (a rare occurrence), Megan enjoys globetrotting with her surgeon hubby and daughter, cooking and eating delicious food, photography, and Zumba. After spending 30 years on the West Coast, Megan now lives in Central Illinois with her family.
