my coworker keeps demanding I say “please”

[ResidentialBusiness]

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager.

I’m off for the holiday, so here’s an older post from the archives. This was originally published in 2018.

A reader writes:

I have a problem with a coworker and have been hesitant to send this to you as it seems petty but it has been bugging me for awhile. It started as a pet peeve but has moved into something bigger the more she does it. This coworker, I’ll call her Eleanor, demands you say “please” whenever someone asks her to do anything work related. Some examples would be as follows:

“Eleanor, can you email me those forecasts for next quarter so I can get this project to our boss?”
“Only if you say please.”

“Eleanor, can I call you about this crisis so we can work out a plan of action?”
“Only if you say please.”

Generally I do say please, but on those occasions I forget I don’t want to be talked to like a three-year-old. This feels like a silly power play and it is a game I don’t want to play. She even does this to her boss! Another concern is that she is doing this to our customers and I feel like this does damage to our reputation and makes us seem difficult to work with.

How do I respond when Eleanor says this to me without being rude (and without playing her game)? Is it that big of a deal that she is doing this to our customers as well? Should I just let that go?

That’s incredibly obnoxious. “Only if you say please” is a statement that’s really only okay for a parent to say to a child, in the process of teaching said child manners. It’s not okay to chastise other adults with it, and it’s definitely not okay to say it repeatedly in a work context. (Once or twice as a joke is a different thing.)

If Eleanor feels she’s not spoken to with sufficient courtesy, that’s something she can address with people — but this isn’t the way to do it. And I doubt that’s what this is about anyway. This sounds more like she seized on this as a cutesy response or is, as you suggest, a power play. Or maybe it’s become a tic and she barely realizes how often she does it. But regardless, it’s inappropriate and annoying.

Your options:

1. Just make a point of saying “please” whenever you ask her for anything so that you short-circuit the annoyance. This feels like giving in, but it might be the most direct route to not having to deal with it … although it doesn’t solve the problem of her doing it to customers.

2. Tell her to cut it out: “Eleanor, we’re all adults here, and constantly responding that way is slowing things down and frankly coming across differently than you probably intend for it to. Could you stop?” (But if she responds to that with “only if you say please,” you have my blessing to make a voodoo doll of her and ritually destroy it.)

3. Tell her to cut it out, option 2: “If you feel I’m not treating you with sufficient respect, I’d certainly want to know about it, but I’d like respect back from you as well — so I’m asking you not to chastise me this way every time I need something from you.”

4. Ask your boss to tell her to cut it out: “Could you ask Eleanor to cut out the ‘only if you say please’ stuff? It was irritating enough when it was her constant refrain with just us, but she’s now saying it to customers, and I’ve got to think it’s putting them off.” (This is the kind of thing that some bosses would gladly handle and others would want you to handle yourself, so you’ve got to know your boss for this one.)

Also, I guarantee you that Eleanor is annoying the crap out of everyone in her family.

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