
The After-Work Email Quandry - jodyribton
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/04/the-after-work-email-quandary/391313/?single_page=true
======
enobrev
I've been working remotely for the past fifteen years, five of the most recent
being a full-time employee for a large company. Because of this I've grown
very accustomed to sending emails that start with "Don't read this until
morning". Eventually my coworkers learn that they're going to get late-night
emails from me, and that I don't expect an immediate reply - nor should they.
After all, email is meant to be asynchronous.

I personally recommend not checking work emails when not working. I certainly
don't. It allows for a clear head when I sit at my desk ready to work. It also
allows me to work at whatever hour I'm most productive without worrying
whether my colleagues are going to jump out of bed to answer one of my off-
hour work emails.

~~~
Afton
Outlook 'delay delivery' option (or whatever your email client supports) is an
even better way. If you don't intend someone to read and act on it until
morning, you can enforce that trivially!

~~~
supercanuck
I work from home sometimes, and its a baseline assumption that my emails are
being read by my employer. Therefore, his email serves two purposes, 1. it
communicates to any line manager that he is in fact working, and 2. Letting
his Coworkers know that he's expecting them to work odd hours like himself.

~~~
fps
1) I've worked IT or IT/operations at a handful of small to large companies
over the past 15 years where I've been directly in control of email and any
"snooping" requests needed to go through me. I can count on one hand the
number of times a manager has asked to read their employee's email. It's
either been due to some HR related issue (harassment, misuse of resources,
etc.) or because the employee was unreachable and some critical info had been
sitting in their inbox. Employers snooping on email in a business environment
is super rare.

2) My experience managing and being managed has led me to believe that most
managers want their employees to work less, and most people believe that their
manager wants them to work crazy hours. Frequently these people are the same
people. eg. a middle manager wants his employees to go home and not work after
hours, but they assume that their manager expects them to work from home
between 7 and 11 PM every night. the GP of your comment even said this - he
tells his employees to not work odd hours, but he does so anyway.

------
cryoshon
Just another symptom of dehumanizing work-life balance as promoted in the US
companies. People feel like they need to get a leg up on each other in order
to retain jobs and be promoted within jobs, so they make themselves available
for work purposes when they are not being paid. Effectively, people compensate
for the wriggling anxiety of an "unfulfilled" work obligation (an unanswered
email received after hours) by giving away their labor for free (answering the
email despite not being paid during that time period to do so). I think this
is also why people may claim that they enjoy or don't mind answering work
emails after work; the reduction of anxiety after tying up an email provides a
tangible upward delta for emotion. I am of the opinion that 99% of after-work
emails would be eliminated if employers had to pay for the hour-block during
which employees are answering emails.

"But when asked what aspects have the most negative impact on work-life
balance, work emails ranked rather low at 18 percent—topping the list were bad
bosses, working after hours, and employers being inflexible about vacation."

Ah, the article is pretending that answering emails after hours isn't working
after hours. They're the same thing, because thought and communication about
details of work equals work. Bad bosses will tend to email after hours as
well. Employers not respecting the majority of their employee's time (which is
spent outside of work) is also closely related to being "inflexible" (not
respecting the contract) about vacation. I think the article could have easily
said that working conditions and labor rights in the US are extremely poor
rather than pretend there is something magical about answering emails after
hours.

------
codingdave
I know it isn't the core of the article, but complaining about an out of
office message is missing the point of out of office messages. They do not
really mean that I won't see your email for a week. But they do mean that if
you just sent me an urgent problem, which normally would invoke an immediate
response, you won't get that response. It lets people know that the normal
communication patterns will differ, and leaves it up to them to decide whether
they need to contact someone other than me.

~~~
hawleyal
That's what email is for already. An out-of-office message just reiterates the
fact that email is not reliable and not time-sensitive anyway. There's no
point. Every single email could have an out-of-office message, saying if you
need urgent help to call/text/send something else.

~~~
zachsnow
Why does texting or calling have a different "urgency" level? Historical?
(Email not historically being pushed to you wherever you might be). Cultural?
In the microcosm of my work life they are on similar planes (especially given
Google Voice), perhaps because they do the same thing: make my phone vibrate.

Maybe every text or call should autorespond saying if you need urgent help to
come find me in person!

~~~
abakker
I'm not sure about texting, but calling is both synchronous and verbose. These
are incredibly relevant criteria for determining whether something is
immediate. While email _can_ be verbose, it seldom is, and if anything
critical is going on when multiple people are involved, a phone call is still
the best way to communicate real-time. If you disagree, see whether you do or
do not adjust what you are saying on the phone vs what you would type. I know
that I favor fast-to-type sentence structure when emailing, which isn't always
the most illuminating/explanatory.

Right now, I think the pendulum has swung away from phone calls and too far
toward emails. Maybe this is because minutes on phones used to cost money,
maybe it is because conference call spam devalued the speed of communication
too far. But I think a one on one call is hard to beat and can often
accomplish what a whole thread of email can in a fraction of the time. Phone
calls are good for communicating fast and figuring out what to do. Emails are
good for having a written record and working asynchronously.

------
jwmoz
Come 17:30 work ceases to exist to me and my normal life takes over. I work to
live, not vice versa.

It saddens me this isn't the way for most.

~~~
thecatspaw
I dont know why people feel the need to check their emails after work. I feel
the same way you do. It makes no sense to me to do something for work without
getting paid for it

~~~
stronglikedan
Unfortunately, most companies think that they own you 24/7 as soon as they put
you on salary. To them, you are getting paid for it.

A guy at my job got written up for not responding to emails on vacation, even
though he had an autoresponder directing people to his boss, and told everyone
ahead of time that he'd be dark for a few days. Management's excuse is that
you are 24/7 unless it's otherwise defined in your employment contract, and
they won't ever put set hours into an employment contract.

~~~
vvanders
That's grounds for job-search in my book.

Vacation is a form of compensation and if a company can't respect that then
they aren't worth working for.

~~~
vinceguidry
It's grounds for a lawsuit, as I'm fairly sure it violates labor laws. Find
the relevant statutes, print them out, highlight them, and watch HR squirm.

~~~
HeyLaughingBoy
Probably not. It's been a few years since I took the in-house Employment Law
class, but in the US I do not believe that you must be offered vacation time.
I remember that you have to have to be able to take at least one morning and
one afternoon break, but that's it as far as the law goes.

------
sokoloff
> there's at least some anecdotal evidence that workers are not always working
> at work

This made me go look up whether hypobole (dramatic understatement) is a word
yet.

I email after hours and on weekends/PTO voluntarily and I do rather enjoy it.
I certainly enjoy it more than coming back to 1000 emails to deal with on my
first day back.

~~~
J_Darnley
>> there's at least some anecdotal evidence that workers are not always
working at work

>This made me go look up whether hypobole (dramatic understatement) is a word
yet.

Well... Is it?

No -
[http://dictionary.reference.com/misspelling?term=hypobole&s=...](http://dictionary.reference.com/misspelling?term=hypobole&s=t)

Yes -
[http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Hypobole](http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Hypobole)

No -
[http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/spellcheck/english/?q=hypo...](http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/spellcheck/english/?q=hypobole)

~~~
tomblomfield
You're looking for "litotes"
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Litotes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Litotes)

------
draw_down
In my opinion people do this because they don't know what else to fill their
lives with, so they fill it with work.

~~~
dredmorbius
There are a few sides to this.

One is, yes, a lack of imagination.

But too: it's _exceedingly_ difficult to find something that you can devote
yourself to _given_ the demands of work. A 9-5, 40-hour week is bad enough,
but the norm for many, particularly in the tech world, is 50-60 hours or more.
Commute, sleep, and other activities tie up yet more time. If you're following
guidelines to stay fit, that's other hour, or several hours per week (though
time I consider well spent). Obligations to a partner, children, or elder
parents can be extensive. If you're in a high cost-of-living city such as San
Francisco, New York, or London, you've got very little space to call your own.

The time and space it takes to cultivate a _meaningful_ alternative activity
is difficult to come by.

We're awash with messages from advertising and media which further pollute our
heads and distract.

And the work many of us do is itself largely mental -- it requires prolonged
exposure and deep understanding, and tends to follow you around. Inspiration
is as likely to strike in the shower as at your desk.

Given all of this, you're far more likely to be primed to be in "work mode",
to understand a quick query or email, and even quite possibly appreciate its
distraction from whatever it is that surrounds you.

I'm not saying this is a good thing at all. I don't believe that for a second.
Unless your work is _exceptionally_ gratifying and you're the very rare soul
who's doing something _actually_ useful for the world, you're far better off
with downtime and the ability to get away from it.

But it does explain much of the psychology behind why the behavior is so
appealing, and why creating more compelling alternatives so difficult.

~~~
noir_lord
My away from computer hobby is cycling, I get to combine staying fit with
something I love doing and occasionally ride with a local club which fits the
social side as well (coffee,cake and a chat after 60 miles is awesome).

It is hard to find time to do stuff sometimes though.

~~~
dredmorbius
A good and valuable occupation, though I'd classify it as fitness actvity
principally.

I'm referring more to engagement which occupies your mind. My experience, with
employment in tech, is that exploring _other_ technically complex issues is
difficult -- there's only so much intellectual capacity a person's got. My own
interests are the complex set of topics associated with sustainability:
ennergy, climate change, human institutions from economics to politics to
psychology to education and more.

As simply alternative mode operations, I've long found that some level of
wrking with my hand -- physical manipulation though not necessarily hard
physical work -- is quite rewarding. Woodwork, refinishing, building or
repairing items, etc. Even cookking and household chores can fill this role.

It's a different headspace.

~~~
noir_lord
Physical work weather it's woodwork or a hill on a bike is a good way to get
some distance from problems and think about them, I solve some of my toughest
problems by going for a bike ride and deliberately focusing on the bike, view
and riding style which I find clears my mind better than any other activity,
usually a solution will present itself at that point.

------
JohnDoe365
> Why do we find ourselves reading emails during vacation or sick days, even
> when we don't have to?

Because we fear to get sacked?

~~~
imglorp
I think it's way more than that. There's a number of ways to motivate people,
such as involving them in the team mission and empowering them, compensation,
and recognition. Motivated people will do what it takes, including thinking
about work off hours.

~~~
mfringel
I'm having trouble parsing that series of statements. How does your second
sentence relate to your third sentence?

~~~
imglorp
I was saying there's more than fear of getting sacked to motivate someone to
work off hours. If you set up the right environment, they'll be doing it
without anyone asking.

------
blisterpeanuts
I check (and sometimes respond to) business email during off hours, out of
curiosity. Also, some of our customers and partners are in very different time
zones, and it speeds things up to answer a question or open a ticket to solve
a problem immediately rather than waiting 12 hours. My manager and I are both
a little fanatical that way. It's not a requirement of the job but it does
distinguish our lean, efficient little intrapreneurial unit from the stodgy,
slow responsiveness of the rest of the company.

------
basseq
I see the connected nature of work and after-hours email as a "symptom" of the
blurring nature of work vs. life. Gone are the days where one clocks in and
clocks out. I fully expect to check work emails and do other work "after
hours" (read: on my own schedule). I also fully expect to check personal
emails, read HN, and do other non-work activities during "work hours".

I get my work done, and I do it well. If you want to impose artificial
constraints on when and how I do that work, you're stuck in the dark ages. My
managers and teams understand that. Sometimes I have email conversations at
11pm at night because we all happen to be up. Sometimes I send emails that
people don't even read until the next day: no problem. Sometimes I don't read
emails until the next day: similar story. If it's truly urgent, people know to
call or text.

I think it's a personal choice, though. I read (and respond to) emails after
hours to a) plan and organize my coming day and b) do an ongoing triage of the
things on my plate. I could do all this at 9am the next day, but I'd be more
stressed as a result.

------
gloves
I know it's not healthy (in terms of switching off from work) - but I do
generally enjoy getting emails - receiving one more often than not will be a
reply I've been waiting for, or even better, sometimes new opportunities/or
customers I like catching up. The association with work makes it seem bad, but
I think a nice email, regardless of time received is still a nice thing

~~~
jacquesm
But how to set up your inbox in such a way that it only allows reception of
nice emails after work time?

------
awjr
I can remember one day rate contract I was arranging, where all the replies
from the manager appeared to be happening after 6-7pm at night and became
slightly concerned that their idea of a day was not the normal 9-5ish. Turns
out he answered most emails late evening.

~~~
sokoloff
I had a new director starting a few years ago when my kids were 1 & 3\.
Literally the first email I sent to him was at 11 PM the evening before his
first day, so I started with, "Don't pay any attention to the time of this
email. I'm sending it now because the kids are asleep and I'm still awake; I
have no expectations that you'll be online answering emails all hours of the
day."

~~~
crpatino
Was it really needed to send that email at that time, or it was something that
could have been sent first time in the morning?* And, where you already
committed to work on something else next morning so the only/most-convenient
time slot available was late the night before?

I don't know you, so I cannot in good faith accuse you of anything. But maybe
if you reflected on your ambivalence towards work-life balance, you'd find the
kernels for personal growth in there. Let me explain myself.

Speaking in general terms, there is a psychological phenomenon called the
double-bind. It happens when a parent or authority figure states some
expectation verbally but then subtly undermine it with his/her actions. i.e. I
can chastise my kids for spending "too much time in front of screens", but
then never have time to take them to play outdoors, or come back home and
either keep working or root myself in front of TV, or buy them a video-game to
reward some special achievement.

The root cause of the problem in this case would be my own unresolved feelings
towards electronic entertainment, which I enjoy a little too much and I am
aware to be not quite healthy. But from the point of view of my children's
psyche, the situation is much more destructive: each of them can either
embrace the label of "coach potato", absorb all the guilt from my chastising,
but keep enjoying screens as a hidden pleasure; or they can try to live up to
the impossible ideals I've set up for them and embrace the label of
"troublemaker", because enjoying some healthy outdoors activity inside the
house will invariably end up causing a bunch of disruption, nuisance and the
occasional accident.

What they cannot ever dare is to say: "Hey Dad, you always say we should play
more outdoors. Turn that gadget off and take us to the park", because if they
do I will burst in anger. We all face some of this while growing up, and most
of us learn to turn a blind eye to some intractable problems. In the most
pathological cases, though, the children can grow up with a shattered sense of
reality and develop serious psychiatric problems when they face the correct
triggers in their adult lives (I have read, though I have not the reference
now, that the double bind was fist discovered by the military while
investigating the clinic histories of veterans who had gone into full-fledged
schizophrenia instead of the more common PTSD).

What I am trying to say while I have read about this phenomenon from the point
of view of development psychology, I have observed the same patterns of
interaction in the workplace a few times. In those cases, we are all adults,
so there is probably no risk of anyone's mental health; but lot's of needless
stress comes from the unspeakable hot buttons, the packs of elephants that
dwell in corporate rooms all over the world.

~~~
sokoloff
Well, it was his "welcome to the company, here are a few things that will be
helpful as you settle in, and here's the scoop on where to go for orientation"
email, so it would ideally get to him before he arrived, and certainly before
orientation started.

Having two kids 3 and under doesn't lend itself very well to methodically
planning out a carefully choreographed morning with just enough time to dash
off an important email.

(That said, I do have a comfortably blurred line between work and personal,
because I genuinely enjoy both and don't see a need for a strong wall between
the two. Other people make other choices and I do what I can to not project my
preferences onto their behaviors and choices. It's not perfect, but nothing
is.)

~~~
crpatino
> Well, it was his "welcome to the company, here are a few things that will be
> helpful as you settle in, and here's the scoop on where to go for
> orientation" email...

You could have said welcome and provide helpful advice at any time during the
first day, as long as there was _someone_ ready to great him first time in the
morning. The same person could have taken him to the place where orientation
will take place. If you are big enough to have structured orientation, you are
big enough to delegate the reception of new employees.

I want to say I am not judging you or your work style. I simply notice that
you have shared candidly and think you may appreciate a comment with an
outsider's perspective.

===

By the way, there was an asterisk in my first post. I was going to say that I
am somewhat biased because my current boss prefers to write untimely emails
first thing in the morning. I know he's a family guy and has to wake up pretty
early to check and respond email before setting the kids up for school. I find
his style very refreshing, specially in comparison with the archetypical past-
midnight workaholic messages (which I confess to indulge in sometimes).

~~~
sokoloff
I appreciate the sharing of your point of view and didn't take any offense
(nor anything else negative).

I understand the people working for me who don't ever answer email unless
they're on-call. Nothing negative as 24x7 email SLA isn't part of the bargain.

