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

[YellowPolkaDotBikini1980]

Just to clarify I don't mean WhatsApp or text or anything. An actual email.

I was up at 2 am, I remembered something and sent an email. Something along the lines of 'just to confirm the Birthday Cake we ordered has chocolate frosting but is a vanilla flavour cake'.

I just wanted to be clear because in the past, with a different bakery, we had verbally said 'chocolate frosting, vanilla cake' but ended up getting just a chocolate cake with chocolate frosting.

When picking up the cake, my sister was told 'and by the way, I don't appreciate getting emails at all hours of the night.'

Surely you turn off email notifications for you phone if you don't want to be disturbed. I don't think the Nigerian Princes and the 'Manhood extenders' are waiting for business hours to spam people's inboxes.

AIBU to send emails late at night?

Not at all, isn't that the advantage of email? Text/whatsapp at that time would be rude, but I'd expect people to only check email when they're working or able to respond

No, I quite often send late emails because that’s when I have time. I don’t expect a reply right away. Sounds like the bakery was really arsey.

I work nights so always email at random times 🤣

That's their problem!
I receive all sorts of emails in the night, bank statement notifications, payment receipts from big businesses.
I also run an online business and have email notifications turned off, easy.
Personally I use the schedule option if I'm up at 2am, schedule the email to send at 8am if I'm in doubt about the recipient.

I receive work emails sent at all hours and would think nothing of it. Whatsapp or texts are more intrusive and woyld expect daytime/early evening only, but I wouldn't think twice about email. Interested to see other opinions!

No. What would be unreasonable is getting annoyed by a lack of response.

The business owner here is being unreasonable. I would think an email is less intrusive than other forms of messaging because you can actively choose when to check them. And as you say, switch off all notifications that you don’t want to receive! You can’t dictate when your customers are allowed to write to you- loads of people will email out of business hours because they’re at work themselves in business hours!

Entirely reasonable for a business like this.

I try to be careful for AirBnB where they are likely to have to keep their notifications etc on in case of a problem at the house.

Otherwise I expect people to set up their business so they deal with issues at a time convenient to them if they are texts or emails. Phone call would obviously be a different matter.

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.

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.

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

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.

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!

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

(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.

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

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

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

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.

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!!

@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.

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!

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)

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.

of course it's not rude

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