This Is Not A Human Footer

🎹 Music for this post: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3_2entulkw.

This post appeared on LinkedIn this weekend, to resounding huzzahs.

“People First; Technology Last,” this isn’t.

Ms. Carter appears to miss that her clever footer amplifies email’s worst traits: email as “The Game of Hot Potato” and email as “Look at me! Working so hard in the off hours!”

Oh, and it gives the recipient even more to read. A lose-lose.

It’s natural and even reasonable to send emails in the off-hours, but such emails should never have to be considered essential to respond to. If you are working after hours and expect an off-hours response, employ something other than email to communicate.

If your after hours email is likely to be interpreted as important enough to force an after hours response in anyone, I suggest you consider the following:

1. Think about what it is in your personal work relationships that would cause someone to feel compelled to respond in the off hours, and work on that aspect of your relationships. If you need to employ a footer like this, something is amiss in your work culture and/or your work relationships. It might just mean that people don’t know you well enough. Work on that.
2. Save the email as a draft and send it when you truly need the response.
3. Compose the email, and employ your email program’s scheduling tool to send it out during business hours.
4. Or, perhaps, don’t send the email at all. We lived for millennia without email. Schedule some time during a day to talk in person. When we speak in person, we eliminate both the “Hot Potato” and “I’m working hard, see?” aspects of email that are so abhorrent.

Filling up someone else’s inbox just so that you can empty your outbox isn’t respectful in any way, shape, or form.

Discuss this specific post on Twitter or LinkedIn.