Is it rude to send a late night email to a business?

If it was a normal email I'd schedule to send at 8am next morning.

However when I do invoices for our business, usually in the evenings or at weekends, I haven't found a way to schedule them, via the accounts package. One customer has commented. My own phone is on do not disturb from 10pm - 7am

That's hilarious, do they even understand how email works??

I find absolutely no need to have my email notifications on at any hour of the day. I just check periodically.

It does piss me off a bit if I get work emails at that time, though I'd never mention it like that to a client. But it's easy to use schedule send, so if someone has chosen not to do that I think its a bit rude, given that these days emails often come through immediately to our phones just like texts.

I don't turn my phone off at night as I use it for my morning alarm, and I don't want to miss potential emergency calls by putting it on do not disturb. Its a bit of a faff to be turning email notifications off and on again every day, so I just put up with the odd late night emailer. I'd never be rude to them though.

Nope, not rude, but I'd say "vanilla cake, chocolate icing" rather than the icing flavour first! Might be confusing the baker if they're reading quickly.

it's a weird thing for her to say. emails can be accessed only in business hours if that what they want.

Phoning or texting would be a no no, but not emailing.

My old childminder was like this. I used to email in the evenings after I finished work, or at the weekend. She told me not to do this and to only email her during her working hours. She said, "The notification pops up on my phone and it stresses me out." We nearly fell out over it as I thought it was really unreasonable of her. She didn't like my suggestion that she sets up a work email address and turns off notifications.

@LifeofBrienne @DreamW3aver
DH has several different set ups on his phone so that he doesn't get work notifications outside work. I think a number people don't know about this/ don't know how to do it/ would find it annoying or hard to do.

When we had to worry about DM I had it set up so only notifications and calls from my family would sound at night.

I know bakers work very hard but that interaction wouldn't have been nice especially as the person picking up didn't send the email.

of course it's not rude

the recipient sounds unprofessional - a hobby baker attempting to run a business maybe?

The advantage of emails is that you can send them anytime.

However, it sounds like the cake maker thought you were chasing her and that she thought you expected an answer at that late time, rather than the next morning. A simple case of misunderstanding.

I always ignore anyone who complains of being disturbed overnight by any notification. Turn them off then. I have to leave my phone on overnight and have all notifications turned off (always do, during the day as well, everyone else in the house has their phone constantly chirping away to notifications from every app and it drives me mad)

That was very rude of them to say that. I don’t mind what time people send me emails. For work though if I’m sending anything after hours I always do it on a scheduled send for the next morning but that’s mostly because I don’t want people to think I’m available at all hours to respond to all requests!

@DreamW3aver thahat’s unusual to choose to leave all notifications on overnight if the phone’s next to your bed. I know some people feel they need to be accessible to e.g. vulnerable elderly parents, but even then you could filter it to specific calls only.

If the business owner didn't switch their phone off and received an email notification at 2am, that's their fault for not turning off the phone!! The beauty of email, is that you can send it at any time. Text/WhatsApp is obviously much different, and no I certainly wouldn't send those messages at 2am. I always turn my phone off at night, and even if I didn't, WiFi is turned off on my phone, so I wouldn't receive notifications anyway!!

That's really rude of her. Just because an email has arrived she doesn't have to read it until she's in work mode. Many of her customers won't be able to send personal emails in "normal business hours" because they are at work themselves.

I know you can schedule to send later but I'm surprised that's necessary in this sort of situation. I wouldn't use her services again considering that she is so hostile and over sensitive towards her paying customers.

You've encountered one small business owner who doesn't like late night messages, it would be bonkers to extrapolate anyyhing from that.

All kinds of emails are all times of day, I'm sure loads of us have jobs where you start the day with all the emails that have come in overnight, that's perfectly normal but that's not what you have here. My phone notifies me of all messages if I choose to leave it on overnight it doesn't matter if you send me a text or WhatsApp or email its still going to chirp and no doubt that's what's happened here.

Anyway, total non issue, use a different baker next time if it's that big a deal

Only unreasonable if it was 2 am on the day of collection.

Yanbu. If you think about it late at night then send it.

(And there you go - just discovered you can schedule send in Gmail!)

No, you're not being unreasonable, lots of us are sorting out jobs like this during the night from time to time for many different reasons. It was an odd response from the baker.

Not rude at all, the cake owner was though. I certainly wouldn't be using their business again!

Oh how odd. I schedule send work emails if working at odd times but I'd compeltely send a home email any time. I dont even know if I can schedule send from my phone on gmail.

Recently I've been sending off job applications late at night before the deadline!

Well, if I ran my own business, I wouldn't allow myself to be disturbed by business emails or whatsapps outside of my working hours.

If this person isn't smart enough to manage their notifications, then that's on them.

Very bizarre response from the business owner. Surely you look at your emails when you have free time, why does it matter what time it came in. Wouldn’t be using them again

No you're not unreasonable I'd have told them when they mentioned it. If you're running a business from your phone either set your notifications up properly or buy another phone and turn it off outside business hours.

Personally I agree. Emails are like letters. For emergencies people call so turning off data/WiFi should be normal.

People are weird though and I suppose it isn't surprising that a small business works in an unconventional way. Usually if I'm sending an email at night I put a delay feature on it so it sends at 8am or similar.