![Louis Hanson](https://akm-img-a-in.tosshub.com/lingo/styles/medium_crop_simple/public/images/story/202407/untitled_design_6.png)
IN MANY ways, sending a perfectly-toned email can be just as puzzling as solving the Da Vinci code (I haven’t read The Da Vinci Code but I’m assuming there’s a code and it is hard to solve).
"Have I used too many commas?" you may ask yourself. "Do I sound too harsh? Does the recipient hate me?" Well, such are the questions that are running through my mind as I stare at my inbox this morning. I’ve just come back from Europe, and, as one does on a European vacation, I’d prioritised beachside mango daiquiris and sexy Hinge matches over prompt email replies for a month.
But, just as the sun fades, mango daiquiris are slurped dry, and sexy Hinge matches fade away into disappointment and obscurity, it was time to come back to reality…and nothing says ‘back to reality’ like an inbox overflowing with emails. *Enter violin screeches.*
So here I am, staring at the screen in front of me, sifting through a cacophony of email-related deliberations.
Take this one email, for example, that I’m currently responding to. It’s from a company, and they’ve reached out about a potential project with myself. It’s a pretty nondescript email in the scheme of things—"Hi! Here are (deliverables). Are you interested?"—and my only job is to loop in my manager, who’ll take over communications.
Seems simple, right?
Sure.
Sure it does.https://harpersbazaar.com.au/email-etiquette-rules-and-tips/
But…
Should I start my reply with "hi" or "hello"? Should the greeting be accompanied by an exclamation mark to appear friendly? Or does that look too enthusiastic? Does an exclamation mark at the beginning of the email mean that I can’t use another exclamation mark in the body of the email, to avoid appearing too overexcited? Or do no exclamation marks at all make me look too cold and serious? How many exclamation marks are acceptable to use? Will I be judged for using too many hyphens in lieu of semicolons and ellipses? Is "warm regards" warm enough?
Such are the decisions that keep me up at night.
As the dedicated journalist I am, I headed straight to Google to investigate whether this email-related phenomenon had been immortalised in the cyberwebs. Here I discovered a lot of discussion pertaining to an experience called ‘email anxiety’.
HRD defines email anxiety, broadly, as “a deep-rooted fear of looking through your inbox — coupled with an innate inability not to.”
I don’t have this exact experience, per se; that is, my stress isn’t caused by the very presence of an email, and I don’t have an innate inability to not look through my inbox (the mango daiquiris and sexy Hinge matches can attest to that). In fact, I welcome the presence of an email. After all, as a freelancer, more emails equal a higher likelihood of work and bookings, and more work and bookings lead to greater income, which I very much enjoy.
Delving deeper into the "email anxiety" discourse, however, I came across an article by Psych Central discussing a “fear of reactions”. I think this is more pertinent to what I’m talking about; my aforementioned stress revolves around the delivery of my responses, and ensuring the tone of my reply is received exactly how I intend it to be, which can often be difficult through a non-verbal medium.
I want to seem casual yet professional but also cool and unphased while also appearing passionate and eager with a hint of friendliness and approachability while being direct, succinct and firm.
(Try reading that aloud in one breath).
Prior to my month-long vacation, though, I was feeling naughty, and, in a bid to free myself from the above mentioned shackles of a perfectly written email, I decided to throw the rulebook out the window.
Did I go rogue with an abundant amount of exclamation marks, you ask? Change the "best wishes" sign-off to "adequate wishes"? No, my friend, I decided to trek where no human had dared trek before in the Gmail-verse: by responding to every email with a picture of Kris Jenner drinking champagne.
"Would you like to jump on our podcast?" someone would write to me. "Sure," I’d respond, alongside an inserted image of Kris Jenner drinking champagne.
A notice about an unpaid water bill would evidently be me with an "oops lol" accompanied by the very same picture of Kris Jenner drinking champagne.
And the subsequent Krisification of my inbox was nothing short of liberating.
The responses were very supportive, from comments like: “what a vibe” to “I need more Kris drinking champagne in my life”. Everyone seemed to welcome the arrival of Ms Jenner, and, more generally, a shake up to their inboxes.
I mean, yes, it does help that I work in a creative field; I’m sure an account or lawyer spouting an abundance of Kris Jenner-related images in their sign-offs would garner a slightly different reaction. But, if anything, the Krisification of my email-writing taught me that perhaps we don’t need to be combing through each and every email, deliberating over the length of a sentence or the potential inclusion of an Oxford comma. After all, I’m sure the recipient isn’t combing through that email with a similarly critical lens. I’m sure they really don’t care. Perhaps it’s just not that deep.
Now, I’m not condoning the Kris Jenner method to be used in every scenario. But, in a world full of "as per my previous email"-s and "circling back"-s, sometimes it does pay off to throw caution to the wind and post a champagne-drinking celebrity every once in a world. As a little treat amongst the monotony.
So, as I sit here in a jetlag-fuelled haze of daiquiris, sexy European men, and many emails to respond to, I think to myself: I might bring the Kris method back. And a rule of two exclamation marks, max.
Or perhaps I might even resort to picking up the actual phone and having an actual phone call with someone.
Actually, wait, no, my phone call anxiety would simply never allow that. I’ll save that discussion for another day.
This article first appeared Harper's Bazaar Australia.
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