Brussels
April 20, 2011

The Angry Email Rule!

I almost got in trouble because of the Angry Email Rule last night.  Happily I pulled back just enough. 

Are you familiar with the Angry Email Rule?  You should be.  It could save your life.  Well, maybe not, but it could save a friendship.  Or your job.

Remember the last time you received an email that really pissed you off?  What did you want to do immediately?  Fire off a tart response, right?

Never a good idea.  Never, never, never, never, never.

The Best Practice Implementation of the Angry Email Rule is:  You may not press the Send button on any angry email until at least 24 hours have gone by.  This is the ideal version of the rule, and the most difficult to follow. 

What can help is this:  WRITE the email.  Let’er rip.  Purge all that righteous anger right out of your spleen.  Plaster the nitwit who was foolhardy enough to incur your wrath right to the wall.  Take no prisoners.

Just no pressy on the sendy button. 

Give it a day.

In a day, you’ll be cooler.  You can look back at what you wrote and try to sift out the actual information from the vitriol.  Even better, you very likely may have new, additional information on the situation which could temper your anger further. 

If you simply don’t have the strength to implement the Best Practices version of the Rule, force yourself to wait at least an hour.  Even an hour can help.

Another strategy?  Give yourself a few minutes to cool off, then call the person.  That plan of action may sound counterintuitive, but it has worked for me.  Increase your chances for success on the call by forcing yourself to spend the first part of the call listening.  You just may get some of that additional information that helps inform the situation.  Plus when you’re actually talking to someone, you’re probably less likely to express your anger as rashly as you might with a plastic keyboard.

Whether talking or attempting to write a calm email reply, remember the following rules:

If it’s a friend, there are only two strategies to use in writing your careful reply.  First, concentrate on providing information that supports your position.  Second, let the other person know how the present upsetting situation is making you feel.  I know, what could be cornier, right?  But it’s necessary.  When you concentrate on information and how you feel, you are not making accusations or playing the mindreading game (despite how much you may believe it, you DON’T actually know another person’s motivation for doing anything, and it’s not a good plan to declare that you DO know, and that the motive was a sinister one).

If the email reply is business related, discard Strategy Two.  This is business, who cares how you feel.  Just provide the information. 

When you NOT follow these rules, and you fire off firebomb replies that are satisfying to write, you are very likely making the situation much worse than it already was.  Even more dire, you could very well be turning yourself into the bad guy in the situation.  Not helpful.

How do I know all of this is true?  Trust me.  Juuuuuuuuust trust me.

Oh, and did I mention that Brussels was BEAUTIFUL?!?

PS  This topic reminds me of the Two Big Lies That The Movies Teach Us.  While I believe there is a lot of human truth that can be illuminated by the movies, sometimes the information is not just wrong, but toxically wrong.  To be more specific:

The Two Big Lies Taught By American Movies

1. Everything movies teach girls about love is a lie.
2. Everything movies teach boys about anger is a lie.

In a typical American movie, the hero (usually a male person) is pushed, and pushed, and pushed, and pushed until he just cannot take it anymore.  Then he gets mad.  Really mad.  And in his white-hot righteous anger, he rights all the wrongs that have been plaguing his world.

This doesn’t work in real life.  When you let anger inform your actions, almost 100% of the time, you make a bad situation much, much worse.