[mdb31]

Nope, not a caricature. Read, for example https://www.atlassian.com/engineering/post-incident-review-a...

This is held up as a great example of transparent communication. For me, this is true, but only for the meaning of 'transparent' which equates to 'you can see right through it, to the extent there is effectively nothing there'.

But as per the article this comment thread is about, this kind of response apparently the 'professional' state-of-the-art.

Yes, I despair too...

[omginternets]

I think I was unclear. I always assumed (perhaps foolishly) that this kind of communication was the result of some sort of PR committee, and was mostly found in outward-facing communications. Are you saying that colleagues interact this was amongst themselves too? Because _that_ would indeed be despairing.

[mdb31]

Nope, people communicate like that internally as well, because "that's what's professional"

In some cases, you can fix this by asking the sender to be, like, normal. This works half the time, the other half involves referrals to HR...