Name: Work emails.
Age: The first email was sent by the computer engineer Ray Tomlinson in 1971 to himself, reading “QWERTYUIOP”.
Appearance: Usually accompanied with a sigh.
*Sigh*. Why are you sighing, exactly? Don’t you like your job?
Yes, but it’s the weekend. I am trying to have some quality time with the family. The last thing I want to do is think about work. Bad news, then. Apparently, the best time to send an email is Sunday afternoon between 3 and 6pm.
Didn’t you hear me? My Sundays are sacred. Plus, it’s Man City v Arsenal at 4.30pm. Anyway, who says Sunday afternoons are best spent emailing? After studying 8.7 million emails, Axios HQ found that those sent during “low-competition times” such as Sunday afternoon had a 94% chance of being opened, compared with a usual 50 to 76% chance of being opened during the rest of the week.
Who has time to read 8.7 million emails? I’m struggling to work through the 600 unread emails in my inbox. Exactly.
Why don’t people just enjoy their time off and send their emails on Monday? “Our research shows that it is not a badge of honour to be emailing people outside working hours and expecting a response,” said the communications software company.
Quite right. But with more and more work conducted online, “techno invasion” – when constant connectivity blurs the boundaries between your personal life and work – has become a real problem.
“Have you heard the new Techno Invasion single, Constant Connectivity?” “Yeah, it’s all right, but I prefer their earlier stuff.” Can you take this more seriously, please?
OK, OK! What can we do about being permanently jacked into the work matrix? Employees in France now have the legal right to avoid work emails outside working hours.
Well, the French certainly do cheese, kissing and Europop better than anyone else. Their joie de vivre must come from their strong record in defending workers’ rights to disconnect. Another company in France has banned emails altogether.
Why email when you can communicate through French poetry or even love letters? Or you could just put on an out-of-office message saying you don’t work weekends?
Yes, but a bit of me wishes we were having this conversation through the warm, fuzzy, haze of a Sunday afternoon rather than on a Tuesday morning. At least then I could just drink my way through it. You and me both.
Do say: “Thanks for your email, only just got this …”
Don’t say: “I was going to phone in sick tomorrow anyway.”
