What do you make of this email response

[Yikitty]

Email sent by newish member of staff to senior staff member - 4 others cc’d in

Reasonable run of the mill email - enquiring about confirming a date. Email first line is “I hope you are well”

response:

”You don’t need to ask me if I am well every-time you email me unless you know something I don’t. Yes”

I don't care if the person who replied is the newest member of the company or the CEO. Whoever typed that reply to a pleasant opening line of an email is a rude bastard.

Am I missing something here? There is no question asked in the phrase "I hope you are well." It is a statement. The senior member of staff who referred to it as a question and responded "Yes." may need some retraining on English grammar (in addition to manners).

That is amazingly breathtakingly rude and I quite admire it. Next email would say hi, I hope you are having a day that matches your cold dead heart.

I don't care if you're well or not but if I was speaking to you in person, I'd ask how you were before launching into my Q. So it's just the email equivalent.

Assuming you are not illiterate you can skim over them in a millisecond, what is the problem?!

I don’t understand why some people are annoyed at receiving ‘hope you are well’ in emails because they’re so busy and don’t want to respond. It’s an innocuous phrase like ‘best wishes’ in an email sign off. It’s not a question and therefore no one expects you to respond!

Surely a pretty senior person in most organisations would have the comprehension skills to navigate this linguistic minefield…

It’s a power play of the worst type. You can bet that if someone senior to them had wished them well in an email they’d have somehow managed to refrain from sending such a horrible response.

For a new member of staff, the wording would be really off and huffy.

it doesn't excuse the poor behaviour of the senior.

this needs to be dealt with behind the scenes not shaming them publicly and definitely not by a junior member of staff.

ideally the new staff member's manager should intervene, and if done well the new staff member should receive some acknowledgement of their rudeness.

I really don't like 'I hope you're well' used routinely, particularly if it's someone who had to email me fairly regularly. It's faux concern and it can start to feel over-familiar and quite intrusive — which is clearly what's happened here.

I think it's also something that women feel they need to do while men don't, so it can be quite liberating to stop the performative politeness.

And of course there's always a chance that the person you're hoping is well really isn't at all well. This never occurred to me before (years ago) a colleague who'd had a very worrying diagnosis burst into tears about having to deal with enquiries that started 'I hope you're well.'

Obviously the person on the receiving end of this platitude should have responded more diplomatically, but if I was the person who'd sent it I'd be mildly disgruntled for a while but quickly thank the sender for the lesson. Just make your request politely and professional and keep it short. No need for the faux interest.

@WheresMySupportCat

Ah, now actually those are better because they are actually true. Assuming you and your colleague both enjoy the archers and you know her well enough to know this, absolutely fine in my book to comment. Same with Samba Band Pete, it’s a thoughtful comment that builds a genuine connection based on a real relationship.

Very different to the bland and normally insincere ‘hope you are well’ to people you might not know, or haven’t spoken to before. In those cases just stick politely with the work content.

The 'yes' was clearly relating to the question the OP had asked.

YES. I normally leave those unread either until they say what they want or until I’m about to log off.

It also drives me nuts when people type long messages on Teams & press return after every line - BANG. BANG. BANG. And you don’t know when it’s time to reply. If that’s happening I usually switch DND, close Teams down & reopen it half an hour later when they’ve hopefully finished.

I don’t have to do it any more (retired) but I think “Hope all well” then straight to the point does the trick without personalising it too much. I never felt the niceties really meant anything but the person who called it out was foolish to do that.

Yes! That one just tells the person what you’re asking for is not important.

Lol, a quiet word, get over yourself

A little secret from someone who uses this gambit to those that say they hate it.

We dont actually give two shiny shites how you are - honestly.

Its just something we say because we're not utter pricks

I don’t really notice guff at the start of emails but would never dream of suggesting someone leaves it out. We’re all different and free to express ourselves how we prefer.

So the new member of staff sent an email with the 'hope you are well' in the email and it was one of the senior staff who replied with the rude reply?

Is that right? Other people have read it that it was the new member sending the reply.

I also read the rude comment as possibly being meant as jokey. If it was t then they wouldn't have put the bit about 'unless you know something I don't' I'm not sure it's intentionally rude.

really cringing at the senior staff response. So inappropriate and rude.

Whilst I agree that a good leader would not have sent that response, I would never say ‘I hope you’re well’ to an exec. You just need to get to the point, they value brevity not politeness.

Well, depending on the circumstances, something polite and professional but more to the point such as;

‘Thank you for your reply confirming X…’

‘Following on from our meeting on Thursday, please find attached…’

‘I am currently scheduling X meeting so please confirm your preferences for date, I can suggest X or Y’

‘Harold suggested that I contact you regarding X’

If you know the person well enough to have a friendly relationship you could make a comment as per Samba Band Pete of course. But only where there is a genuine relationship and in a more informal email.

Any future emails to this person would be returning their rudeness:

Bitchface,
Are you available on x date?
Toast

No, you're the kind of unimaginative lazy people who won't spend a moment to come up with something authentic but just rely on platitudes and think you're being polite...

Also really cringing at the amount of people on this thread who are so bothered by junior staff being polite.

I'm cringing at what I imagine your leadership style is, but you crack on letting people know just whos boss.

Wow, are they young? If so I’d be giving them a few tips on office etiquette. They have a lot to learn. So rude

That's so rude!

My daughter got pulled up in year 8 for email etiquette during Covid, for not starting with any pleasantries! Bearing in mind the poor kid had never sent an email before.

I'd say always better to include pleasantries than not. Being too polite is better than not polite enough.

This is also true. I understand seniorbod's motivation but, if they've made it to seniorhood, they should know better than to reply like that to a newbie.

It should be handled in person or ignored.