Let’s email each other like humans 💌
Only 5% of this email was written by ChatGPT.
Thanks for voting on the day you want to get Nice Work! It resulted in a very nice tie, so we’ll keep showing up in your inbox on Fridays for now and check back in later! 🎉
Last month, we talked about how to create pretty work. As an employer of humans and a human who earns a living by working FOR other humans, I know that pretty work is a great way to stand out at your job.
The "work" reason to do it is because it shows care and craftsmanship (which then underscores your value to the humans in charge).
The meaningful reason to do it is because it makes what you create feel yours, more pleasant, and more human.
I think a lot about that last bit - feeling human - and how it fits into work.
For us (I run a boutique communications and strategy agency in Amsterdam), it’s important because humans write articles. Humans organize conferences. Humans judge awards. Humans follow social media channels and join Discord servers and buy products and choose vendors.
So I coach us to remember that no matter what we do, or post, or pitch, we’re still talking to humans.
This “we are all humans” rule should apply to ALL communications, but does anyone else feel like it doesn’t really….happen at work? 😬
To be fair. It can be hard to remember that people we interact with at (or for our work) ARE human. We don’t really "see" the people we email or DM or ping or [insert Gen-Z verb here for message]. They're an icon, an email address, a sassy username, a pithy bio. They're a gatekeeper, a decision-maker, an unresponsive inbox, a blue "read" receipt.
And, even if you bring warmth and humanity to YOUR communications, you won't always get a human, empathetic, well-thought-out response. You might not get a response at all.
So why do it? Churning out a quick note is faster (especially if you're evaluated in any way on emails sent, not on the effectiveness of those emails.)
Because least some of those people will meet your humanity with theirs, and that opens doors that a template email never will.
And…it just feels nicer to do.
Don’t misunderstand me though - this is HARD WORK. I try to bring kindness and humanness and realness to my digital space, but my first reaction after receiving a particularly depersonalized template email, or a pushy follow-up, or a passive-aggressive Google Docs comment is STILL not:
"Wow, this human is having a hard day,"
or
"Wow, this human must have had to respond really quickly because this note is really short,"
or
"Wow, this human probably has no idea how this is coming across."
My knee-jerk response is…less generous.
But if I wait and re-read it later, the time gives clarity. I can see if it was sent at an unusual time (no one emails pleasantly on the weekends.) I can evaluate who it was sent by, their role, and intuit the deadline or responsibilities they might be under.
To generalize, my generosity returns. I feel a bit more human, and it costs only a minute or two more to email them back like a human (assuming I even need to).
It just makes it all :gestures at the world: a bit easier.
💌 A satire about email
Last year, I received a strange follow-up email from a popular platform.
Trying to get us as subscribers, they had cold-emailed me at about 8 pm my time on Tuesday asking for a meeting on Thursday. Because of the late hour, I saw it Wednesday morning at 8 am.
They THEN sent me a follow-up email1 at 2:30 pm Wednesday.
I won't screenshot it because it isn't fair to the human who had to send it, but it essentially went like this:
Hi Rachel,
I want to be sure I am emailing the right person. If you're busy, but are the right person, can we put a few minutes on the calendar this week to discuss it? If not, I'd appreciate you passing me along.
Thanks,
A-20-something-right-out-of-college-junior-salesman-emailing-from-a-CRM-with-a-quota-to-hit
It's polite, but it isn't human. They hadn't looked me up, because if they had, they'd know I am the person in charge of my (small but mighty!) firm. A quick scan of LinkedIn would tell them that there is no one else that would make the decision but me.
(The other option, of course, is for them to find the appropriate person themselves from said LinkedIn, but that goes back to this idea that you can take on a problem instead of putting it on someone else.)
This email also gives me no room to exist as a human who doesn't need their platform or isn't interested (which is a whole other discussion about using the written word to pressure people into decisions).
But the wildest part about this is that the follow-up came less than 24 hours after the first email! 😵
So is that the benchmark now? If you don't respond within 24 hours, you're too busy and either need a reminder or need to forward it to someone else to handle? And if neither of you can do a meeting this week (i.e., within the next two days) - then, what are you doing?
To this, I say no. No, my friends. No. We can do better. 🙏 We can remember we're all humans and that we all have a lot of work to do. 🙏 That’s why a non-response is fine, and if you choose to respond, that response time can be longer than 24 hours, especially if it isn't an emergency. 🙏
Speaking of taking our time, we can spend a minute on personalizing our emails! Not to up the open rate/response rate, but to up our humanity. 🙏
Overall, we can remember - there's just a lot going on. So how can we show up for one another, and ourselves, as people who remember that?
To give you some inspo, I invite you to read a somewhat-but-actually-not-at-all-satirical response to this email (and its communiqués-in-arms across all work mediums).
I hope it gives you a chuckle and permission to be a human with an inbox this week. 💌
Kindly,
Rachel
Hi there,
Thank you for your email. Yes, it does find me well, aside from the :gestures at the world: general state of things.
I know you're just doing your job, checking things off the to-do list. And here I am, messing up the flow by responding so quickly. It was off your plate onto my plate, and now here it is, back on your plate again.
Nothing was wrong with the email before you ask - it was perfectly polite and well-written. And yes, it successfully reached me (well, your server sent it to my server without any hiccups). You might have even forgotten you sent it by now, and are on your way to your next email.
I hate to bother you, but could I ask you one thing?
Next time, could you maybe email me like I'm a human?
Because I am, you know. I know some of the "humans" we email now are really well-trained AI chatbots. And hey, they could get you an answer much faster, but you emailed this address, which is still managed by a human. So, you're stuck with me!
But yes, I'd really love to join your event / write about your company / introduce you to that person / try your service / help you with that task / go with you on that quest to destroy the One Ring. Still, I'm afraid I can't do it today because it's already 7 pm here and I want to stop working for the evening.
Maybe next time, you could ask a few days in advance. I need time to check my calendar / ask my editor / find their email / research your pricing / finish my other work / ask my friendly neighborhood wizard what he thinks.
Yes, I COULD do it now, but I try to keep these things within my normal working hours. Otherwise, it bleeds over into dinner time, and when that happens, I tend to dream about work. They're not usually bad dreams, though, so that's nice - I just wake up feeling like I've been in a trippy all-night meeting.
Speaking of dreams, how did you sleep? How was your morning? Did you get through all of the emails you needed to send? That's great. I had a slow start today. I usually get up quite early, but my fiancé was deeply asleep, so I stayed in bed a bit longer to do the Wordle and enjoy the stillness. It was nice. Do you Wordle? What was your score today? Mine was:
⬛️ 🟨 ⬛️ ⬛️ ⬛️
⬛️ ⬛️ 🟩 🟨 🟨
⬛️ 🟩 🟩 🟩 ⬛️
🟩 🟩 🟩 🟩 🟩
Anyway, because I got started a little later, I was working on other things when your email came in. Truth be told, I almost deleted it because the subject line Was In Every Word Case - not that there's anything wrong with that! It just looked like a marketing email, and I'm trying to stay at inbox zero because I read in an article that that's the best way to stay on top of marketing emails. Is your inbox at zero? What about your WhatsApp and iMessage pings and Insta DMs and LinkedIn Inmail and Telegram chats and Discord servers? What’s your secret?
I applaud the brilliance, though, of asking me to introduce you to the right person because I haven't yet responded to your email from yesterday. This is a good way to keep things moving and to show your boss you're Doing Things™. You probably didn't even write that email. I shouldn't pick on it or you. It's more than likely a template, part and parcel of a perfectly calculated formula to "nurture leads" or "entice responses." You're (probably) a human with a boss, and this timing isn't in your control. You can forward this email along to them if it helps. I'm sorry to bring down your statistics with a slow response time and lagging open rate, but I found that I can't get through my Big Thinking Work if I constantly read and respond to emails. I planned to respond to you tomorrow morning - about 36 hours from your initial note.
Like you, I also have someone to answer to: my boss / clients / customers. They're waiting on me for things, and since they pay me, bear with me while I get back to them first.
I have started my response, though! I want to wait to finish and send it tomorrow because I feel a bit tired. When humans are tired, we tend to write shorter emails, snappier responses, or quick 'get this off my plate' forwarded notes. I asked ChatGPT to help me with a response that wouldn't sound so passive-aggressive, but it churned out this little number:
Dear [Salesperson’s Name],
Thank you for your email. I appreciate your follow-up and enthusiasm for scheduling a meeting.
I understand the value that your product or service can bring to the table, however, I must inform you that I am currently not in a position to schedule a meeting at this moment. My schedule is quite full, and I am focusing on other priorities.
I would like to request that you respect my current situation and not send any more follow-up emails unless I have specifically indicated my availability.
Thank you for understanding.
Best regards, Rachel
I think this email is fine. But as you might see on LinkedIn, I live in the Netherlands now, so my understanding of what is fine might differ from yours.
Funny story, my Dutch doctor's office sent me a newsletter last week, saying they'd been struggling with long waits on the phone due to understaffing. They said that some of us hadn't been nice after waiting so long (not me, I promise), and they said we should try saying,
"How nice that I finally got you on the phone."
Instead of whatever rude statements we (the royal we - again, promise it wasn't me!) were using as a greeting.
I think that sounds capital-A Aggressive, not just passive-aggressive, but since then, I've tried to be a lot more aware of where humans are from and how best to reach them.
Oh, I see now you're in California. It's still morning for you. Well, I hope you have a good day. You won't get my response until around 10 pm your time, assuming all goes well. One can never know, though. That's the beauty of being human.
I really hope you don't respond to it at 10 pm.
Kindly, Rachel 💌
*There's a million ways to respond to this email (I responded saying that I am the right person, that I found the email polite, that I found the follow-up timing too quick, which I know isn't in his control, that we aren't interested, but that we'd be interested in a referral arrangement if they had one for anyone else we know that might be interested in using the platform.) I received no response. But hey - all you can do is try.