Advice Part 96- When not to write back

One rather unwelcome fact about myself which I have been forced to acknowledge lately is that I have what could be euphemistically termed "a bit of a temper." Beneath the benign exterior lurks a beating heart, filled with fury. And one thing which REALLY gets me riled up and liable to explode is negative emails.

My advice to young players is that if you receive an email which gets your proverbial goat, DO NOT WRITE BACK immediately. Or at all. Instead, allow your anger to go from a boil to a gentle simmer before you give your interlocutor the full benefit of your superior intelligence. How do I know this? Read on.....

A while ago, I submitted a paper to an academic journal for publication. The obligatory eon passed, and I received a reply. The reviewers liked my paper, but wanted a few changes.

No biggie. A revise and resubmit was a good result.

So, model academic citizen that I am, I made the changes (which I didn't like much, but anyway.....), and resubmitted the paper, expecting an acceptance.

Hence, you can imagine my FURY when I received a rejection!!!! I was absolutely incensed, and decided to let the editor of said journal know my thoughts on the subject.

In a fit of rage, I sat down, and typed out an email, in which I questioned "the rigour (or lack thereof) of the editorial process" and expressed my "extreme surprise and disappointment at the negative reception towards (the) revised article." I continued in a similar vein for a few more paragraphs, just to ram the point home that I was NOT happy.

Feeling extremely proud of myself, and righteously indignant, I pressed "send", and thought no more about it.

Well, no more until I received a reply from the editor herself, telling me that my email was "lacking in collegiality" and "disrespectful to (her) and to the journal." She advised me to "moderate my tone" and to "behave with greater decorum."

Oh dear. That's one journal I won't be submitting to in the future.....

Another, more recent, incident occurred when I received a rejection for a job I had applied for. The form "thanks, but no thanks" email included a glaring error in punctuation, which I decided to generously point out to the sender, along with informing them that I thought it was "extremely unprofessional" and "cast a bad impression" that their rejection email was so poorly composed.

I didn't receive a reply to that sterling effort. And I doubt I'll be getting a job there anytime soon.

My new policy is to still compose emails of fury, and then send them to myself, rather than the intended recipient. This way, I can exorcise the demons, and exercise my literary "skills", without causing offence or making things more difficult for myself in the future.

But if anyone would like me to write such an email on their behalf, please let me know. My rates are very cheap.