I found out bosses hate when you email them after 7pm

A friend in HR at a Cincinnati firm showed me internal data that managers see late emails as desperate or needy. Over 60% said they think less of someone who sends work emails after 7pm on weekdays. It blew my mind because I always thought it showed I was grinding hard. Has anyone else gotten flak for night emails?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_holly22d ago

Oh totally, this is one of those things nobody tells you until you get burned. I used to send stuff at like 11pm thinking I was a hero and then got pulled aside by my boss who was like "hey are you okay?" Real awkward. Now I write everything up in a draft and schedule it for 7am the next day. My team thinks I'm some kind of morning person genius but really I'm just a night owl who learned the hard way. The best part is when someone replies at 9am saying "wow you're on it today" and I'm still asleep.

mark_price25d ago

Same thing happened to me. I switched to scheduling emails for 8am the next day and stopped getting side-eyes in meetings.

veraj5325d agoMost Upvoted

Oh man, this is the real hack right here. I started doing the same thing after I got an email from a colleague at 2am asking about a non-urgent task, lol. Now I write everything up when I'm actually awake and productive, set it to go out at like 8:30 the next morning. People think I'm super on top of things, but really I'm just avoiding the awkwardness of them knowing I'm answering emails in my pajamas at midnight. Plus nobody side-eyes you for a "during business hours" timestamp. It's such a small change but it made a huge difference for me too.