I am sure many of you while writing documents or answering messages for work use shortcuts, to simplify long words or common expressions that are known to people who work in a specific field. However, many of us fall in a trap of using internet expressions, which are these days common as proper expressions to some, but still can create confusion.

For example, you include expressions such as brb, bbl, thx, btw, lol, and huh (yes last one is an internet expression for you know who), and your older non-internet saavy fellow worker reads it and gets:

a) confused
b) shocked
c) understands but ignores
d) annoyed
e) laughs secretly that they know what it actually means

My question is, when you do such things, does it make you less professional or is it accepted these days that many of the Generation X (and the one after it, do not know what they call them) just express themselves in such manner?

Purgatorian Post #1169