Why You Should Write Emails Like A Lady

Eavesdropping is, you understand, my sacred journalistic duty.

- Meg Mason

Even when I don’t feel like it, even when not technically on assignment, if a private conversation between strangers strikes up within range, integrity compels me to turn an ear towards it.

And so it was yesterday at lunch, when two women took the table beside me. One of them was already midvent about her husband being made to undergo workplace “sensitivity training” after a female colleague got upset because his emails were “too blunt”.

I had no choice, then, but to start shifting my chair imperceptibly sideways, continuing to stare resolutely ahead against the prospect of any voices being lowered.

And I got the whole thing. The husband was an executive at some big corporation, the complainant a youngish new recruit who was so injured by the “inappropriately direct” tone of his written communications she lodged a formal complaint to HR.

As my untouched tuna melt formed a hard crust, I listened on and began to wonder exactly how direct an email would need to be before I’d be moved to do the same. From the paperwork standpoint alone, I’m thinking pretty aggressively no‐nonsense.