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Or, grow up and just respond to the email in the morning. Some of us mid levels and seniors have way too much going on to worry about your feelings about e-mail timing and scheduling emails like that. Be grateful you are not working for dicks who actually WOULD make you do something late at night rather than telling you that morning is fine.
Be an adult and just respond in the morning. It’s really not hard.
Mentor
Yea delay email is not 100% a solution (as someone who has wished it was) - if your on Citrix or VPN, and get disconnected for time or inactivity - emails won’t send. I have also had instances where delay send emails don’t send if my computer restarts to install updates or if the computer is shut down. In short, a junior associate learning how to deal with an email is part of the job, and it’s not worth the time or risk of issues to use delay send.
Your feelings are my number one priority.
Do you realize how many emails anyone who is not a junior has in their inbox in the morning due to different time zones? Mornings are extremely chaotic and busy and nobody has the time to check if their scheduled emails went through. It’s not fair to create more work for people especially when they are not doing that to you. I don’t expect a reply but I expect to have the freedom to check one more thing off my infinite to-do list especially when I am forced to work until midnight literally every single day. Have some empathy please. Just check them in the morning.
Mentor
Exactly and it does not get better.
Mentor
Yeah I’m not going to go out of my way and create more work for myself because I’m worried what time my email will hit your inbox.
posts like this make me think im a boomer (im a millenial)
CA 1 apparently everyone who isn’t gen z or younger is a boomer. Unless you’re the media and you’re still calling all young people millennials despite many of us being in our late 30s/early 40s.
Coach
The only reason I would hold off sending a late night email until the morning is so it’s top of your inbox. Could give a rats ass about how you feel otherwise.
Enthusiast
My burning question is why you’re checking emails at midnight unless you’re already working? And if you are, why are you complaining? Do you have an Alexa set up in your bedroom to announce all work emails when they come in?
Ditto A7.
Community Builder
I'm...not...quite sure what the issue is here. How about just send the email when you feel like sending the email and don't give others a hard time for doing what works for them
Enthusiast
Why though? Just don’t check your email until in the morning. I don’t understand why you are so in your feelings about this. It’s simple. Close your computer and walk away and come back after you’ve had your tantrum and then respond. Sheesh. An email is not the same as a phone call, you’re only bothered to the point you choose to be, it’s not my fault you don’t know when to walk away. 🤷
Lmao. Good to see OP got roasted. Learn to understand what needs your response past 10 pm and what doesn’t. Or respond from your phone with a *will do* and turn to it in the morning. Be an adult with common sense.
Personally, if it’s clear that it’s just a late email and I don’t have to respond, I like seeing the emails at night so I can mentally prep my to dos for the next day before I get to my desk. To each their own, no need to blast people if they’re not being unreasonable. Everyone has their way of working (as you can see from the other responses here).
Mentor
Let's all shift the blame where it belongs. I agree with OP, but that doesn't mean we should add more to the plate of timekeepers. Firms need to address the problem of always being available and employ technological solutions to the problem. How do I know whether that Saturday email is urgent without looking at it? Now my weekend has been interrupted. Technology can fix this and help reduce burnout.
Then fire all the juniors and just have paralegals do the work!! Seems like people don’t like capitalism when it works in the workers’ favors. Oh, attorneys just spend 7 years pursuing a job come to find out it’s just so the people there can treat you like a useless shit to just send dial-ins and diminish the work you actually are asked to do (answer everyone’s questions with zero help, management, or direction from them on how to produce good work?). You can’t do the job without junior attorneys, that’s how much they cost. Pay up or have no juniors and do all the work yourself since mid levels and seniors are so competent (and paid hundreds of thousands more). Let’s turn the tables: Y’all are so useful, but you can’t send your own dial-ins? For 285k a year? Damn.
Best I can do is start the email with [bold italics] in the morning [regular text] can you...
OP - do you also expect non-US attorneys to also cater to your schedule and send you emails during US business hours? 😂
I think instead of delaying emails and arguing about emails being sent at 2am, why don’t we normalize that people have different times to do things? Set your own boundaries and have people respect them. Unless something is really urgent, don’t reply to late night emails. Respond in the morning and don’t be apologetic about it - people will understand that’s your time. I get it OP, as a junior it can be hard to filter what is urgent, but please remember that there are people who work in different ways than you do. Sometimes bedtime and dinner for my kids take longer, and I can only focus on work after midnight. Or some people just focus better late at night. Or very early in the morning. Normalize being flexible - not just for those who send the email but also those who respond.
It’s easier for you to just learn how to manage your own emotions and boundaries. You can’t expect everyone to tailor their style around your preferences telepathically.
Isn't the point of emails is that they aren't texts. They don't bother people like a phone call used to or a text might.
Out of all the issues in the entire world or even just in our industry...should the timestamp on an email really be a thing?
As long as the sender of odd time emails doesn't expect a response immediately I see no issue.
But I did get berated once by the partners at another firm that hated that I would send the occasional midnight email and the entire firm made fun of me for sending an email at 2am once.
So I know the issue exists but really it shouldn't.
In an ideal world this would be nice but many people catch up on emails at night due to other responsibilities, and they may not know how to schedule emails, or they’re sending from their phone, or they’re just not thinking about it. It’s up to you to manage your own emotional reactions to things. If you don’t have enough perspective to say “no response is expected of me now, so I’ll wait until tomorrow” ultimately that’s on you.
Subject Expert
Seriously.
Just gonna put it out there that emailing outside of work hours in France or Portugal is frowned upon, and employees cannot be fired on the basis that they refuse to read or act on them outside their designated hours. Life is more than just work.
Biglaw and IB make you opt out of the law when signing contract I believe