Not all email must be read immediately

Mail delivery used to be a sport for the whole family. The dog was excited to see the mailman. The baby loved to rip up the packaging and stomp on the foam bubbles. That left Miss Manners time to read her letters in peace.

But then the children grew up, and so did the technology. Since the mail started arriving electronically, Miss Manners’ Gentle Readers have deluged her with complaints that their friends and relations never put down their cellular telephones.

They are constantly checking for emergencies. Unless they had left children at home in possession of matchbooks, the potential emergencies are always described as work-related. And perhaps they are.

But putting aside the increasingly flabby definition of “emergencies,” Miss Manners recognizes a valid concern. The volume of work-related mail has increased enormously from the days of typewriters and mimeograph machines, and employees on the receiving end also have complaints. They are constantly on call, and they are aware that their personal relationships are being harmed.

Miss Manners realizes that it is probably futile to suggest that not every aspect of one’s job is of Lifesaving Importance. But she asks that bosses and workers alike stop hurling accusations of insufficient dedication at workers who do not respond at noon on a Sunday to every thought that passes through a co-worker’s head. Employees may be intimidated into responding even if the boss had no other intent than to clear out his own inbox.

She asks everyone to acknowledge that employees – and bosses, too – are entitled to some time away from the office. If there must be after-hours communication, the technology itself may be used to distinguish the pressing from the vital-but-less-time-sensitive. Company policy could, for example, dictate that agreed-upon categories of emergencies are handled only by telephone or text.

What matters is that everyone take time away from those devices to think about the contents of the correspondence – and the welfare of the correspondents.