Why do we keep turning simple messages into proclamations?

Why do we keep turning simple messages into proclamations?

I cannot exactly remember when I started learning English, was it when I was 6 or 7 years old, or maybe I was 5. I do not know. Ask my mom, please. LOL.

What I can reassure everyone reading this personal journal is that even if I started learning it from day 0 (mom milk please hehe), there will always be grammar lapses. That should always be part of my DNA. I am not prideful about grammar lapses, but open and receptive to improvement of course.

The United States, even before the 20th century, greatly influenced us. It is something like an immersion that etched into the bone marrow of most Filipinos like me because the way we speak, write, listen, and read. And yeah, you are reading a blog entry of a non-US citizen from the other side of the planet. Awesome right?

But of course, since the immersion is not at the same level of conducive strategy from the West, there will always be noticeable differences. Accent is there, comprehension is there too.

Despite these opportunities we have as a nation, is this enough reason to beautify our chats or emails in our corporate messaging platforms, or maybe is there more to it?

I have been in the call center industry, voice and non-voice, from 2010 to early 2021. From 2021 to present, I am in an IT role. One thing I have noticed from almost 2 decades of my career journey with British, US, and even Aussie folks never majorly complained about the structure of my vocabulary when I talk, write, or read in English. There will be times they have trouble hearing a word, and the most brutal example is bitch vs beach. Yeah. That joke never gets old.

This is not specific to the Philippines either. I have seen several instances where my previous acquaintances at work did this, and they are onshore. Email beautifiers, chat polishers. And let us fast-forward to this year, most of us know that Microsoft Copilot is now available in Outlook for polishing your emails. And there is more.

With all of this, I do not know if human-to-human connection is diminishing drastically in this AI era. Maybe even way before the internet, we were already separating ourselves from genuine human connection.

One of the examples is this (mock only ok?), and if you know the song, I did not include Fe hehe. Lorna the manager just wanted to decline the leave request of Aida:

``` Hi Aida,

Thank you for submitting your vacation leave request for December 19, 2026.

After careful consideration, I regret to inform you that I am unable to approve this request...

For these reasons, your vacation leave request for December 19, 2026, is denied.

I appreciate your understanding and encourage you to coordinate future travel plans after receiving leave approval whenever possible. ```

You know what that email really means No. So why did it take few paragraphs to get there?

Maybe Lorna used AI to make it sound nice. Less HR friction (Hell yeah for sure!). But somewhere between the "careful consideration" and the "I appreciate your understanding". I can feel that Lorna stopped being a human and became a memo.

What if she just said:

`` Hey Aida, I am sorry, but December is packed, I cannot approve it. ``

Same result with 0 labyrinths. Still a human.

The way I see it, whenever I read messages generated by AI and prompted by employees to look nice. For me, it adds a layer of obfuscation. A slow departure from being human (Maybe they are excited to go to Borderland, hehe joke only).

So I guess the answer to why we beautify our messages in corporate platforms has nothing to do with weak English. My compass is pointing toward one direction and that is we want to look strong, even when the context does not require it.

I am not asking people to be rude, but what I am asking people is to stop hiding simple truths behind layers that are not necessary.

I understand the sectors and groups that need to sound bureaucratic in public i.e. government, C-level folks, media, people in uniformed service. But if this is just your first-line manager or team lead then my question for that: Is being human no longer allowed? and Are we now required to mask ourselves with curated AI messaging?

I do not think so because the more I think about it, the less I blame AI. Humans have always found ways to wrap simple messages in layers of professional language. AI just amplified the speed.

AI revealed a behavior that humans were already comfortable with.

AI did not create the obfuscation.

We did.