2-1-discussion-filling-in-the-gaps

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For workers in a public service organization, emails, texts, and instant messenger communication can all be discoverable and, in some situations, used in court. With that in mind, review the Email to Supervisor document, which shows a hypothetical email sent by a team member in your office. Identify the areas that could be improved upon and rewrite the email. The email should be addressed to your supervisor with the intent of informing him of the missing case details.

In response to your peers, act as the supervisor who was on the receiving end of the email. Respond to the agent to recommend ways to approach the Bureau of Explosives and Weapons to obtain the missing information and avoid incomplete cases being referred in the future.

Peer post 1

The purpose of this email was to inform the supervisor of some missing details from a case sent by the Bureau of Explosives and Weapons (BEW). Although Special Agent Roberts addresses the issues of the matter, it ultimately gets lost in translation due to his emotions. Roberts seems frustrated and unprofessional with the lack of information provided on this case. He also mentions that he “is getting tired of getting incomplete cases from other agencies” which shows that this happened at least a few times before and he probably didn’t report it. Roberts most likely waited until he was “fed up” to address the issue. Below is the email re-written in a more professional way, with concerns addressed without being lost in translation.

To… supervisor@xyz.gove

Subject: URGENT; Missing Case Details

Hello Sir,

I am writing this email to you in regard to the referred case I received yesterday from the Bureau of Explosives and Weapons (BEW). I noticed that there were some important details missing from the case and I felt that it should be brought to your attention.

I believe it would be in our best interest to find someone who can help us analyze the information that was sent. I was thinking we could set up a meeting with a representative from BEW as soon as possible so that we can resolve this issue.

Some of the details that are missing in this case include:

  • There is no information about the kinds of explosives that were purchased nor the chemicals that were acquired.
  • No knowledge of who the eyewitnesses were.
  • No CCTV footage.

Having access to the information that is listed above would help with the entire process.

At your earliest convenience, I would like to meet with you in person to discuss this matter further and hopefully come up with preventative measures to detour this from happening again. I believe an open dialogue with the representatives of BEW would benefit this process tremendously. I hope to hear from you soon.

Best regards,

Special Agent Roberts

XYZ

Peer post 2

Good Afternoon Class,

The intent of this email was to inform the supervisor of the insufficient and incomplete case that was received from the Bureau of Explosives and Weapons. Within the email, the point was lost because of personal emotion involved. To help make the email more professional, there needs to be no spelling and grammar errors, the subject should not be titled “Talk Please” as it is very unprofessional and does not give any information on what the email is about, and the personal emotion involved in the email is overpowering the actual message that is trying to be conveyed. If this email was subpoenaed, it would be highly scrutinized due to the massive amount of grammar and spelling errors and the lack of professionality. The following is how I would re-write the email if I were going to send it to my supervisor.

SUBJECT: Urgent: Missing case information

Good Afternoon Sir,

Yesterday, I received the referred case from the Bureau of Explosives and Weapons (BEW) and would like to schedule a meeting with you to discuss the details. We need to have the information analyzed by our analyst’s, but we do not have all of the files. The following is a list of details we did not receive;

-Type of explosives purchased or chemicals acquired

-Eyewitness names and contact info

-CCTV footage

There has been an issue lately with this as other agencies are constantly sending incomplete cases to us. I will call the BEW in the meantime to retrieve the missing files, but recommend we reach out to the other agencies and discuss our issues with them to get this problem resolved.

Very Respectfully,

Special Agent Roberts

XYZ