How to communicate when trust is low without digging yourself into a deeper hole
&gt; TRY TO SOUND FRIENDLY.<p>&gt; Say &quot;please&quot; and &quot;thank you&quot;... use emojis...<p>I&#x27;ll add to this one -- use exclamation points!<p>It&#x27;s actually ridiculous how effective all these little things are.<p>In my experience, men, engineers, and especially engineers who are men tend to think of this as unnecessary fluff. They often decline to add these little social niceties because to them, they sound inauthentic.<p>That&#x27;s not a character flaw or anything! You have every right to feel that way. I do think it is just categorically wrong, though.<p>I don&#x27;t know a better way to say it, but: you should really just start doing this. Even if it feels weird to you, it is incredible the degree to which it eases text-based interactions. Even if <i>you</i> aren&#x27;t noticing it, I promise that other people are.