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?

I didn't ask for a response. I assume business people know to respond.

My communication can be a bit 'bare bones' which I understand can be abrasive but I try to be aware of this.

It was basically something like 'Dear Amanda (fake name), it was good to speak with you yesterday. I'm just writing to confirm that the cake has chocolate frosting but is a vanilla cake. Thanks. Yellow

YANBU. Cake maker was the only rude one here. Calling at 2am would be rude. Text or WhatsApp a bit dicey as you don’t know if recipient is able to mute at night (eg might need to keep phone on for emergency calls). Emails I would think are totally fair game.

I think adding "sorry about the late night email" s worse if anything as it seems to add to the feeling of urgency.

It popped into my head and I knew I might forget if I didn't do it there and then.

what is the point of your replies asking her what the point is?!

Elderly parents that might mean she has the phone switched on overnight and thus heard an email arrived and opened the phone to see what it was. Newsflash, not everyone uses all the functionality of their phones to set different levels of notifications overnight

I don’t think it’s rude at all (though she was). Emails alerts can be easily controlled by the recipient.

No problem with that. It's the beauty of email.

But what if it was a spam email message?

I am a night owl. I use delayed sending so I look like a lark up at 7.30 am. I delay the sending of the email message to 7.30 am even if I wrote it at 2.30 am.

Eh? I'm not asking her what her point is, she said she was ND so I'm clarifying that there is no universal answer to the question. Have you quoted the wrong post?

I have a small business, and late night emails don't bother me. I know what it's like to suddenly remember something and have to send it there and then before you forget, especially if it's something that's custom made. If someone expected an immediate reply that's different, but you didn't do anything wrong.

She doesn't sound too pleasant to deal with and won't retain much of a client base with such a bad attitude.

That’s a bizarre reaction to an email. I work for a small global business and I get emails literally 24 hours a day from different bits of the world. I only read/respond to them in my UK working hours though!

Entirely her problem. I get emails from courier companies that are delivering stuff at all hours of the day and night, had one at one minute past midnight this week another at 5am. She should mute her phone.

It's not a newsflash. I am aware not everyone is aware they can turn off notifications for certain apps.

Esp as this is quite clearly what happened.
The business owner is on the wrong for being rude about it and has likely lost a customer and will lose more if she doesn't think "gee, if only there was a way to stop my phone from giving me notifications about emails as it's rather distracting."

If someone is getting annoyed about receiving email out of hours it doesn’t sound like they have the necessary skills to run a business. (especially in the UK where many businesses still choose not to have instant messaging/support and often take a couple of days to respond!).

Appreciate that 😁 we have one and the amount of people who message at all hours, also often expecting a fast response. We get a loud ding and it’s very disturbing.

But generally for emails, any time should be fine to send them. I have work contacts all over the world, if we had to keep to certain hours nothing wound ever get done.

It never fails to amaze me how aggressive some replies are here on MN when the OP is about the most innocuous thing.

Good job she doesn't do my job. I work with students who like to do most of their communicating between the hours of 11pm and 3am and usually after they've had a beer or two.

I count my lucky stars when they stick to email and don't revert to WhatsApp or Text.

The bakery person is being ridiculous. My inbox is full of middle-of-the-night e-mails from my bank, brokerage firm, insurance companies, credit cards, utility companies and various online merchants. Do I care? Of course not. I'm not a nut.

YANBU - strange behaviour by the business owner.

If getting emails at night pisses you off then yes you'd be sensible to turn off notifications for your business email at night

Actually i think it is rude to send business emails at weekends ,or at night
Certainly would never tell a client that
When working out of hours I schedule emails to go the following morning

Ridiculous and completely self defeating if you run a business. I get dozens of emails overnight from everyone from my gas supplier to people marketing clothes.

No one forces you at gunpoint to open email at 2am.

People are becoming very precious about electronic communication these days. You can’t avoid it but email is far less intrusive than most forms of communication.

I wouldn’t use this person again.

I wouldn't even schedule the work emails. Lots of people work at odd times. If we're both only working evenings it just adds a pointless delay.

It's up to people to manage their emails. I don't have any email notifications on day or night and phone is set to no notifications at all between 10 and 7 unless it's my parents phoning