Do Your Coworkers’ Emails P**s You Off?

The average person sends and receives around 121 emails a day. If you work in a digital-first workplace, a disproportionate amount of your daily communication is spent on email. Whether it's with cold-callers, phishers, family, or coworkers, we’ve all been worn down by our daily dose of emailing.

The evolution of emailing has formed its own elaborate subculture that in many ways defines the way coworkers interact and influence company culture. Many email exchanges are brief or forgettable, some might even be inadvertently humorous. But very often, email communication can be disjointed in ways that can have far-reaching and deep negative impacts on people’s interactions and company culture.

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Poor email communication can risk workplaces suffering death by a thousand paper cuts over time. The most subtle miscommunications over time can tear apart a workplace all the time. Certain common disjointed email exchanges are both avoidable and threatening to healthy workplace relationships. What do some of these interactions look like and how can we be better at mitigating them?

Common examples of email conflicts

Brevity and Friendliness

Every person has probably long contemplated the tone of an email we have either sent or received. Is my boss mad at me because they were short? Why did I use so many exclamation points? Very often people’s relationship with email tone is a by-product of the power dynamics that exist with the person whom they are communicating with. These dynamics mostly relate to seniority, but they can also speak to imbalances in representation within a workplace (e.g. gender, race, sexual orientation).

We all get it; email is an often-mundane necessity in our daily work lives. With that said, be mindful of the fact that email communication is an extension of regular workplace communication. As a leader, subordinate, or colleague, the way we interact with others has a strong impact on our relationships with others. The way we communicate also impacts the presence of power dynamics that possibly threaten people’s sense of belonging.

The Master Type-o-ist

Ah yes, the infamous typo. They can feel like the ‘ducking’ worst when the unfortunate typo slips in at the worst time at work. While mostly comical, typos can also be met with harsh criticism. Traditional norms of the workplace might want us to emphatically declare typos as a sign of incompetence or unprofessionalism. However again, these kinds of critiques is both inaccurate and representative of power dynamics within the workplace. In fact, typos are often a good sign when evaluating talent for creative or even leadership positions.

With that said, typos reflect more negatively on younger employees or generally unproven employees whose performance might be more substantially and harshly measured based on their email communication including typos. Generally, we all benefit to pay less mind to typos from our coworkers, especially as it relates to our perception of their performance.

The Serial ‘Follow Upper’

Mastering the dance of follow-up emails. The endless stream of ‘did you get my message’ or ‘pushing this back to the top of your inbox’ can push the blurred lines between charmingly persistent and insufferably annoying.

Between piers, these interactions can be annoying, condescending, or even stress-inducing. To the recipient, these exchanges can feel like the sender is distrustful of their competence. To superiors, too much follow-up can come off as inconsiderate of one’s busy schedule and priorities.

If you are a serial follow-upper, be mindful of how your persistence might even come off as personal to the recipient. To the recipient of persistent follow-up, try your best to brush off perceived slights and channel an empathetic perspective. The person seemingly determined to hijack your week may simply be suffering from stress or emotionally invested in their work. ?

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