THE EMAIL PASSIVE AGGRESSIVE PLAYBOOK

A field guide to disguise your character defects as professionalism

We think no-one can see our inner workings, what’s driving this behaviour. We’re fools, everyone knows, everyone’s up to it; you might as well be standing in reception with a mega-phone. We should all stop it, now, it doesn’t work.

The Move	What It Looks Like	What It Actually Means
The Strategic CC aka The Witness Protection Programme	Cc'ing someone's manager, or even higher-up, on an email that is — technically — just a routine update. The content is innocent. The timing is not.	You’re too spineless to deal with the real issues direct and you need to bring the heavies in
The Reply All Decline aka The 40-Person Confession	Responding to a meeting invite with 38 other attendees to explain — in full — that you won't be able to attend, (selfish – cluttering in-boxes and no-one cares)	You’ve got FOMO plus status anxiety, you need everyone to know you were invited
The Zoom Side Hustle aka The Invisible Multitasker	Confidently opening your emails mid-meeting, secure in the belief that the slight downturn of your eyes, the occasional distant expression, and the typing sounds are completely imperceptible to thirty people staring at your face.	You genuinely think you can get away with it – which means you must think we’re all idiots, your face is way bigger on our screens than yours
As Per My Last Email aka The Polite Detonation	Five words. No raised voice. No exclamation mark. Just a quiet reminder they’ve clearly not done their job properly and read what they should have done.	You think everyone is a bunch of muppets, and wasting your time
Just To Clarify… aka The Velvet Correction	An opening gambit that suggests collaboration and mutual understanding, followed immediately by a thorough dismantling of the other person's position. Often delivered with a warm smile in a meeting.	Once again you need to remind everyone you are better at this than them
The Fully Bolded Email aka The I Can Prove It paper trail	When you've said this before. Twice. And now you've decided that if the key points are in bold, the dates are underlined, and the action points are numbered, no one can plausibly claim they missed anything.	If you could go round to their house and take their TV to make your point you would.
‘Happy To Jump On A Call’ aka The Last Resort Threat	Deployed after a three-email exchange that has somehow become less clear with each response. The offer of a call is not enthusiasm. It is a warning.	Your lips are bleeding from smiling thinly and gritting teeth at the same time
‘How Interesting…’ Aka The It’s Anything But Interesting	‘Thank you for sharing your ideas, they’re very interesting’ – and then you go on to completely ignore said suggestions in favour of, in your opinion, ‘far better and often opposing suggestions.	Europeans know British people are lying when they say ‘how interesting’ - we think we're being polite when actually it's a holding phrase before we set them right.

If you recognised more than three of these, welcome. You're one of us.     www.ginnybaillie.com