To feel hurt this deeply?

[Hspdirect]

I need to start by saying yes, I am a highly sensitive person but does work correspondence always need to be so aggressive?

As a manager and employee, I always try my best to be patient, kind and friendly but my inbox is constantly a string of urgent demands, highlighted failures (whether my fault or not) and accusations.

There is no doubt in my mind that I'm not the only one whose mailbox looks like this but I guess I just wonder why? I'm not asking for people to tiptoe but there seems to be no fostering of positive and nurturing relationships or thought around how certain messages may be received. While this isn't an essential, I just think, well why not?

I'm with you, op. If I am angry with someone I usually write a really angry email but i don't send it. I leave it in draft and then I edit it. I find that I can usually get across all my points but without being unkind. For me that is professionalism.

Otherwise, we live our lives in a neverending cycle of abusive communication. I get stressed, so I pass it on to you, then you pass it on to someone else. And so on. Pathetic.

Keep being you, op. Don't let the *s grind you down as we used to say in the old days.

I'm going to start by saying a fully agree with you OP, some people just don't seem to realise how their messages are perceived. I used to work for someone who was like this and I stopped letting him reply to my clients, because he wouldn't even write hi/hello or anything.. he'd write one line of text (usually with spelling mistakes) and then just put his name underneath,

BUT

I think your message would sit a bit wrong with me in fairness, saying you 'didn't think 'such a form' existed' when you have previously had it, and spoke about it in the past multiple times is really dismissive, and if I was that person I'd be a bit annoyed that instead of just doing what I asked which is looking for it, you immediately denied all knowledge of it.

Also, if it is your job to find that form and send it you were definitely wrong to reply in that fashion before you had even looked for it, there's one thing to exchange basic pleasantries, it's another to give people a blow by blow account of your thought process including how you don't think you'll be able to find it, when they don't give a toss about that and all they want is the form sending.

Either way you should 100% have looked first before replying at all, you are definitely over communicating things that don't need to be communicated at all.

That. In person I am warm and interested in my colleagues. But emails in work time are a practical tool, not chats.

I think my boss is on here😂. People who think it’s efficient management are wrong.

Tone can be really difficult to gage though, esp on formal emails.
"Please let me know as soon as you have completed xyz." Could very well be an impatient, curt email that feels borderline aggressive. The same email would read in an entirely different tone if you added a smiley face at the end.
I try and give most conversations that I feel are rude the benefit of the doubt.

I don't think YABU for thinking this bloke is a bit of a rude prick but YABU for feeling "deeply hurt" - it's not really a big deal

I don't like wasting the time on pleasantries, find them false. Just want to get on with the job usually. There are other times for chats and friendships. Work is work - communication should be friendly but succinct and clear.

If you want to do small talk - keep it to Teams chat or the water cooler or the people sitting around you.
Work emails are for work.

God no! Smiley faces are passive aggressive. Only my boss adds them when asking us to go above and beyond work extra hours.

Yeah op
I get you!
Is the negativity, gets ya down eventually!

When people write ‘hope you had a nice weekend’ they mainly don’t expect the recipient to actually explain what they did - just a ‘yes, hope you did too’ then the foreplay ends and it’s time to get down to business.

I do usually start with a greeting such as ‘hope you’re well/had a nice weekend’. As a Director I’m conscious that I don’t want my team to feel like I’m yelling or barking orders.

As an aside I can’t bear it when people write on Teams: ‘Hi cool, how are you/hope you’re well’ leave it at that and then expect me to respond to what I know will result in some sort of additional work for me. I feel it’s testing to see if I’ve acknowledged the message then they go in for the kill. Stop playing footsie with me and just tell me what you want!

It's hard not to feel down with a constant barrage of negativity. Your example op, the person sounds like a prize prick and honestly, I'd be very tempted to reply politely asking them why they asked you in the first place if they knew where to find it.

Kill them with kindness - it works IRL so why not via email?

I am with you, OP.

I’ve worked in workplaces where people are polite and chatty, and in others where people are more curt and sometimes it feels deliberately contrary.

It doesn’t take a genius to work out which was nicer.

Absolutely agree. I’ve been managing teams as a freelancer for many years now and use very similar language in my emails to yours. It goes a long way to fostering good relationships with my team and making people feel valued, and call me cynical, but that in turn means I get the very best out of them and they’ll often put my work ahead of others who maybe don’t make that effort at pleasantries. It honestly baffles me that many people don’t get this.

@edwinbear funny you should post this! I too was thinking about this test, called True Colour Personality Test done with our team years ago. Our colours were Blue:relationship oriented, desiring acceptance and communication Orange:action oriented,seeking recognition and praise Gold: organized, valuing stability and order and Green: Analytical, appreciative of validation of their ideas.
It was a great team-builder exercise back then, very enlightening to us all and it was fun too. It made you look at your team mates with new eyes, some held in check their 'Blueness' in order to perform more analytically, but the exercise brought out what personality type you really had.

You missed a trick there.

I see that the form was sent to me whilst I was on mat leave.
I’m afraid that even I can’t be in 2 places at once.
As you’ve managed to successfully find the form yourself I see no reason to discuss this matter further.

You have only given one example.

Not enough, for me anyway, to decide if YABU.

There are lots of ways to rub people up the wrong way.

Easy to say, but you come across, to me anyway, a bit laid back.

Why do you have so many "urgent demands"?
Do you get behind in your work perhaps?

Work correspondence does not need to be blunt or demanding.

The example you gave seems somewhat rude but things like ‘urgent demands’ aren’t rude if they’re necessary.

People’s email style varies. My own is polite but brief. I aim to take up as little of people’s time as possible.

Absolutely the footsie thing! I somehow don't mind it when it's part of a broader message and/or where it's not a direct question but a statement. So this is tolerable: "Hi Wild, Hope you had a good weekend. Could you tell me...." But when it's a self-contained message it seems to demand a reply; queue 5-6 messages back and forth, wasting both our time and interrupting thought processes. It's not so bad with emails because its less immediate than Teams. Urgh! And I'm really not a dick at work, I just think its disingenuous. We're all busy, just cut to the chase people.

OP, If you're unsure of the tone of your email, one technique is to type your direct/borderline-rude/overly-nice email into Co-Pilot of chat GPT with "improve" or "rephrase" etc and it generates an alternative wording. Obviously, take out anything confidential etc