Email boxing

It used to be said how polite we British were. Maybe we still queue patiently at bus stops, and unlike stereotypical continental Europeans, we wait our turn. But in general our tolerance for others and the way we react had definately changed over the last 30 years.

We appear to live in a more aggressive, indeed violent society, exemplified at one end of the spectrum as we’ve become a nation of complainers and the other by the knife carrying culture of many of the urban young males.

I’m sure we all like  to consider ourselves to be kind, compassionate and reasonable human beings, not prone to aggression. Yet put us behind the safety of an email and for many us, our characters can change.

The very quick-fire nature of an email means that, on occasion, our correspondence can lose a degree of courteousness… and when you are not face to face, it’s easier to take a firmer, more aggressive stance.

It can develop into a semi confrontational, passive-aggressive process where colleagues face-off and exchange a series of ill-considered emails, usually in quick succession over a short period.

On several occasions in recent weeks I have taken an active role in such a dialogue, where each successive email attempts to out-score the previous one. Any satisfaction  in ‘getting-in the last word’  is short-lived. It’s both time consuming and annoying,  but ultimately unproductive.