A work email made me angry

I wasn’t going to let some rude words ruin my day

Work commute via Hong Kong subway stations.

I had just crossed out the last work task on my to-do list on Monday when a rude email landed in my inbox.

To: Rebecca
Subject: Important Work Thing

Hi Reckless Rebecca

Can you sort your shit out, please?  you’re making me look bad.

Ruth

Ok it wasn’t exactly that, verbatim, but it felt like that. My ego took a hit. I take real pride in my work.

I stared at the email. The blunt words stared right back at me. How dare she undermine my efforts like that? My body heated up like a firecracker, fingertips sizzling on my keyboard. I started to sweat, wanting to reply Rude Ruth with justifications like “well the other person was asking for info and you didn’t reply to them” and “you don’t even normally respond to my emails. But now that you need something, you email me?”

The screen started to blur in front of me. My eyes were starting to water, a sign that I truly have reached peak anger. no. No. NO! I cannot be that newbie who cries after a little snarky comment comes in… like, who does that? My friend Valerie gets berated for leaving documents at the printer every day and yet I can’t take a prickly little email?

My first instinct told me I needed to rant. Having an outlet usually helped with a highly emotional situation. So I Slacked my colleague: “I REALLY don’t like Ruth’s emails”. Usually she’d reassure me, but her status was away. Now what?

Last week I learned a breathing technique for when anxiety creeps in. Exhale, inhale, inhale, and then exhale again. I’m not feeling like I want to melt into a corner (I more so want to explode like popcorn) but if this breathing can calm down anxiety then it can probably tame my temper.

Exhale, inhale, inhale, exhale.

My heartbeat slowed. My vision cleared.

How can I solve this issue if my ego wasn’t in the way?

Because of course there was an issue. I was too busy fuming to clearly think that there is a simple solution to the problem presented in the email chain that I had looked over because I was too focused on Ruthless Ruth snapping at me.

Exhale, inhale, inhale, exhale.

It did not matter that I didn’t make a mistake to begin with. Or that someone else in the company thought I screwed up. But these inner dwellings are just eloquent justifications. Ultimately, my feelings of being misunderstood are irrelevant to the task at hand. All I had to do was ship the requested information over. Like former president Barack Obama’s advice to young workers, I just had to get stuff done.

Exhale, inhale, inhale, exhale. I hit reply.

To: Ruth
Subject: RE: Important Work Thing

Thanks for the update, Ruth. Attaching the information that Alex the Approver was asking for.

Best,

Rebecca

I wasn’t actually thankful for the update (if the reprimand can be considered an “update”) but I wanted to be (somewhat) gracious in my responses. How we make people feel is what often lingers after conversations and encounters. Even if it was for Rudeth. And this was the most sunshine-y response I could think of.

My boss caught up with the email chain at the end of the day. He reassured me that I was not at fault and just like that, my bruised ego was healed. In the somewhat heartless corporate world, I am grateful that my boss is a thoughtful soul that breathes humanity into the team. Plus it’s not like I didn’t get anything out of that snarky email. It birthed this Substack post, after all.

This post incorporates edits from friends that are not rude:

Steven Foster

,

Lavinia Iosub

, Kevin Brennan,

Andrew Plainview

, and

Tommy Dixon

. Neuroscientist Andrew Huberman calls the breathing technique a physiological sigh.