Opening work emails up

[HoneyFlowers]

Does anyone else do a "oh my god, let's dart and hide" when loading up work emails?

every day

Yep

Select all, mark as open and then have a brew

Sometimes I “forget” to click on Outlook and have an absolutely stellar day.

Totally. Sick feeling in my tummy when I see them come in

Yep hate the fear of opening up emails and it’s usually a tirade of misery. Always feel sick. Have to compartmentalise so I can get on with writing reports etc.

Yep ‘let’s see what fresh hell we have in here….’

Thank goodness not just me then!

Yep. Monday is by the far the worst. But every day since the covid pandemic started it has become unbearable. Absolutely nothing but doom and fuckin gloom

Oh yeah, and through the day if I get back to my desk after doing something else and see a new heap... just draining.

I do make sure not to reply quickly. Do not feed the beast! If someone emails and then you reply straight away they will reply again. Wait until they have moved on mentally.

No. I have my own inbox and two group inboxes. The emails in the group inboxes have to be actioned, so there is no avoiding them. Luckily I love what I do and am happy to deal with emails.

The team I manage have a dedicated support email address ( sort of tech support). One of the things I emphasise is that we try, within reason, to clear it by the end of the day. This isn't so much to ensure good and prompt customer service, but to preserve the mental health of the team. It's satisfying to end the day with nothing hanging over your head and you know that unless multiple systems have fallen over during the night, the morning inbox isn't going to make your stomach sink

Email inbox I can handle these days as I enjoy what I do. When it used to make me feel sick was the beginning of the end for me in that job. See also: can't dial in for voicemails - makes me feel so afraid (of what, I've never known). I turned mine off despite my boss complaining.

I'm the opposite, love an email coming in with some exciting new question to procrastinate away from the dull work I'm supposed to be doing!

I have 3 inboxes to check every day & potentially a 4th if a colleague is off!
I used to have 20 emails max "to action" in my inbox... Since about Aug 2020 when work started getting back to full swing & we had back to back holidays the number has just crept up.
It now feels like a monumental task to work through them. Not helped by being pregnant & having full on fecking" baby brain" (being unreasonably tired) this week 🤦‍♀️

Yes. It's a little better since I spent an hour creating a series of rules that sort out quite a few emails for me (I particularly like the one that sorts any emails that I am just CC'd on into a folder). I also set a couple of power automate flows up that send an automatic reply to a few specific people who tend to just email me absolute shit, now they get a reply 1 business hour after they send me an email, which just acknowledges that I've received the email and asks them to give me a call if they want me to take any specific action, then it files their email away for me 😂

I work in a Global company so have emails being sent to me all throughout the night across numerous time zones and it's exhausting knowing that no matter how hard I try to close out all my emails before finishing for the day, there will still be a dozen new ones to read over breakfast the next morning.

Aw I like emails!
I have loads of accounts to check every day (my direct one, sales one, accounts, recruitment, generic, feedback etc) and I always like going through all the emails. But we don't use emails internally.

Hate phone calls though. Would much rather someone emailed.

Some days I sit down at my desk and the stress of opening outlook instantly sends me running to the bathroom. I love my job overall, but I hate the fear of what might be lurking there.

My emails aren't so bad now but about 15 years ago I had an utter bastard of a boss. I used to come back from leave dreading what she'd sent me, usually a catalogue of complaints about my team that I could do nothing about because I'd actually been on leave! Horrible woman and she's the reason I still dread opening emails when I come back from leave.

I work for a global company, so in the morning when I login, there could be over 100 emails. Also many slack messages. It takes me an hour every morning to sort through them, reply to quick ones, take actions etc.
I frequently have meetings in the evening (just off a call now), but no matter how late I work, there's always a flood of emails in the morning.
My favorite days are US holidays - no emails/meetings! So plenty of time to catch up on my work.

I'm on maternity leave
I haven't been in work since March 2021

I didn't know my last day was going to be my last day - I did not put out of office on

How many emails will I have when I go back in may ?!

Yep.
Always dread.

Every fucking day

I'm on maternity leave. I haven't been in work since March 2021. I didn't know my last day was going to be my last day - I did not put out of office on. How many emails will I have when I go back in may ?!

You can safely do a 'delete all'.

Does anyone also spend hours writing and rewriting emails to sound less "pissed off"?