Tks

Omigosh, I had to laugh. "Tks" was the full content of an email I got from a client the other day. That was it, just ... Tks.

He meant thanks, or thank you, or thank you for your response ... or, more specifically, thank you for responding to my email and for editing my important presentation that was attached. 

Not to worry, I gave him a ton of grief for his Tks. And I reminded him that my work with him, our journey together, was to help him become a more robust and relevant communicator. He's an executive, with a lot of potential and a bright future, but I'm told that people cannot follow him when he speaks. He really had been making great strides, getting lots of compliments, feeling better about his presentations. Then Tks. 

But Tks is not just his pitfall. It's all of ours. Thumb fatigue from text messaging, the limits of the 140-character message, and the pressures of hectic and multiple communication modes these days have made for some pretty sloppy messages that assume a familiarity and casualness with your audience that might not always be appropriate or welcome. And let's be honest here, we've all fallen into a complacency with messages like Tks. We just generally trust that it's okay. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't ...

The moral of the story? U cud b gr8, but beware, these shortcuts could also shortcut your career if used too often or with the wrong audience at the wrong time. And so the few extra seconds it takes to type out a full word or two might be well worth it. Think about it next time you're in a hurry to send a message, and Tks for reading!