How would you punctuate the sentence in blue?

[Dragonness]

I think that's too business-y. (Though it *is* in reference to a job interview, I still don't like the matter-of-factness feeling of the slashes.)

See, to me the slashes are quite a casual and non-standard form of punctuation, making them ungrammatical even, so I wouldn't use them in business correspondence or formal writing of any kind. I figured this was a casual piece of prose by the way you piled those reasons on top of each other, and the slashes felt right to me.

As you say, this is very much a question of personal interpretation, but if you read the sentence out loud, to me it feels the slashes convey perfectly the kind of pausing you'd need for your 'deadpan' effect.

[donnach]

Maybe I didn't mean business-y, maybe I meant too cut and dried or scientific-appearing. (I think I have my own label system: deadpan, business-y, etc.)

What's really annoying is when people actually say the word "slash", as in your (and my) sentence. It's meant to be silent--though implied--in conversation, in my opinion. Saying quote/unquote is okay, but not slash! :)