Private sector people - do people at your co send emails during off hours? A number of the business clients I serve do

[Anonymous]

this even though our HR gives regular updates about not doing this.

Ironically the people who do this most often are the men who work in technology, and who therefore should know how to delay delivery of an email so it arrives during regular hours instead of at midnight.

Fwiw these are never urgent emails, and very often any minimal urgency is caused by their delay.

How would you handle?

I don’t always respond right away, but if I see an email from work pop up, I’m going to end up thinking about it.

[Anonymous]

Omg turn on DND.

It’s 2025, it’s not my job to make sure your email is not arriving during dinner time. E-mail. It’s not a phone call. It’s not even a text. It’s the most non urgent communication imaginable. People work all hours now, for flexibility not necessarily urgency or long hours.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Omg turn on DND.

It’s 2025, it’s not my job to make sure your email is not arriving during dinner time. E-mail. It’s not a phone call. It’s not even a text. It’s the most non urgent communication imaginable. People work all hours now, for flexibility not necessarily urgency or long hours.

This is my philosophy, too. Occasionally I'll bother to schedule a send for typical working hours, but generally don't bother. I don't expect any replies off hours and my direct reports know that.

[Anonymous]

We all send emails whenever. Many people catch up on work after kids are in bed. They send emails as they are written. They are answered the next day. I don’t really care. I am not going to hassle my coworkers and make them responsible for when and how I read my email. They don’t need to babysit me.

[Anonymous]

Did op just arrive from 2002?

[Anonymous]

The expectation for my husband is to check regularly and respond as coworkers are all over the country. It’s just business now. It was fine working from home but now with rto it sucks.

[Anonymous]

I don’t understand the panic over receiving an email in off hours. It’s inherently asynchronous communication. You’re expected to respond when you’re available.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don’t understand the panic over receiving an email in off hours. It’s inherently asynchronous communication. You’re expected to respond when you’re available.

The issue is that different workplaces, and even different employees, have different unwritten rules on when an email should be responded to. So it helps to clarify expectations.

For myself, if I'm sending an email at a time outside the recipient's work hours, I'll add a parenthetical statement at the top along the lines of "I know I'm sending this on a weekend, but I don't expect you to see or respond to this email until your next business day."

If someone still gets upset about me sending them an email outside normal hours, that's on them.

[Anonymous]

In law firms, yes..

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Omg turn on DND.

It’s 2025, it’s not my job to make sure your email is not arriving during dinner time. E-mail. It’s not a phone call. It’s not even a text. It’s the most non urgent communication imaginable. People work all hours now, for flexibility not necessarily urgency or long hours.

This. It's on you OP. I'm not fiddling with each email or Teams message to delay receipt when I have coworkers in just about every time zone (British Columbia to Australia).

I don't get alerts on personal devices. My personal routine is that I only see work things when I open my work laptop.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Omg turn on DND.

It’s 2025, it’s not my job to make sure your email is not arriving during dinner time. E-mail. It’s not a phone call. It’s not even a text. It’s the most non urgent communication imaginable. People work all hours now, for flexibility not necessarily urgency or long hours.

This. It's on you OP. I'm not fiddling with each email or Teams message to delay receipt when I have coworkers in just about every time zone (British Columbia to Australia).

I don't get alerts on personal devices. My personal routine is that I only see work things when I open my work laptop.

Op here. Not sure why people are getting so angry. My HR dept has specifically instructed people NOT to send comms during off hours ‘unless it’s urgent’ so an email during off hours is implicitly urgent (except these often aren’t, or it’s unclear if they are, which is even more annoying).

It takes an extra five seconds to delay delivery when one sends an email. Arguably it’s on them to do it, if they’re breaking the email rule.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Did op just arrive from 2002?

I think you think you’re being funny but don’t realize that in 2025, a lot of companies have proposed rules about off hour communications (especially with staff who may be entitled to overtime) and there are easy tech tools to delay delivery. I happen to work in technology so I’m pretty sure I know a lot more about these tools than most people.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t understand the panic over receiving an email in off hours. It’s inherently asynchronous communication. You’re expected to respond when you’re available.

The issue is that different workplaces, and even different employees, have different unwritten rules on when an email should be responded to. So it helps to clarify expectations.

For myself, if I'm sending an email at a time outside the recipient's work hours, I'll add a parenthetical statement at the top along the lines of "I know I'm sending this on a weekend, but I don't expect you to see or respond to this email until your next business day."

If someone still gets upset about me sending them an email outside normal hours, that's on them.

Why don’t you just delay delivery?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don’t understand the panic over receiving an email in off hours. It’s inherently asynchronous communication. You’re expected to respond when you’re available.

Op here. No, it’s not clear. We are not supposed to send emails outside normal hours (with unwritten rule about an hour or so before work and an hour or so after- basically 8 to 7:30 is fair game) so an email at midnight implies urgency. Understand now?

[Anonymous]

Half the time, delay delivery doesn't work from outlook -- either it sends right away or not at all. Just don't look/don't respond.