Received a rude email at work? You’re not alone.

When I was weighing a move from full-time to freelance work, a terse email from a colleague – demanding I redo a task from scratch over a technicality – settled the matter instantly. I quit on the spot. Around the same time, thousands of US government workers received an email requiring them to justify their employment “with approx 5 bullets of what you accomplished this week” – or resign.

None of this, it turns out, was particularly unusual. Research from 2015 shows a third of employees receive at least one rude email per day, and email has become even more central to work since then. Although it might seem like a minor irritant, the consequences of email incivility can be far-reaching.

How ‘email incivility’ can affect you

“All forms of incivility create emotional wear and tear,” says Sandra Robinson, a professor of organisational behaviour and human resources at the University of British Columbia’s Sauder School of Business – and email incivility, or rudeness through email communication, is no exception.

A recent study of more than 1,000 employees found that rude emails trigger work rumination – that very specific misery of replaying an exchange in your head – which makes it harder to switch off after work and is linked to higher rates of anxiety and depression.

And unlike a rude verbal comment, a rude email can be reread repeatedly, which compounds the psychological harm well beyond the initial moment, says Zhenyu Yuan, an assistant professor of managerial studies at the University of Illinois Chicago.

There’s a physical toll as well. Gary Giumetti, a professor of psychology at Quinnipiac University, points to research linking email incivility to headaches, stomach aches, fatigue and increased heart rate reactivity, which is linked to a higher risk of heart problems.

Another study found that passive email rudeness, such as being ignored or left without a reply, is linked to insomnia. The uncertainty of not knowing whether a slight was intentional keeps people checking their inboxes long after they should have switched off.

Giumetti’s research on email incivility has found that hostile emails predict more absenteeism and higher intentions to quit. In Giumetti’s lab experiments, people who received rude messages fared worse on math tasks, reported lower energy and, in a staged “pen‑spill test”, picked up fewer pens for a stranger than those who’d received neutral messages. Rude emails, it turns out, make you less likely to help anyone, not just the person who was rude to you.

Giumetti’s latest work also links email incivility to eroded trust between workers and team leaders and, further down the line, to outright deviant behaviour at work, such as theft.

The effects of email incivility at work “can also spill over into home life”, says Verena Haun, a professor of work and organisational psychology at the University of Würzburg. In a study of dual-earner couples, Haun found that when one partner experienced more rude emails in a given week, the stress carried over into the weekend and affected their partner, who in turn also showed more withdrawal from work in the following week.

Why people send rude emails

Sometimes it has to do with the work environment. High-pressure industries, excessive workloads, internal competition, poor supervision: all of it makes rude emails more likely, says Giumetti. In one 2009 study, 91% of workers in the banking and financial service industry in Singapore reported supervisor incivility over email.

Personal factors also play a role. People high in neuroticism and low in agreeableness are not only more likely to send rude messages, they’re also more likely to interpret other people’s emails as rude, even when the intent is ambiguous, says Giumetti. Alcohol use and fatigue contribute too, he says, because they strip away self‑control and make people more likely to fire off something sharper than they intended.

But the medium itself deserves some of the blame. Email “creates psychological distance”, says Haun. That distance makes it easy to forget there’s a person with feelings on the other end. Robinson likens this to drivers being ruder with each other on the road than they would be in, say, a grocery store, where they are face to face.

Why it’s easy to interpret emails as rude

Not every rude email is actually meant that way. Emails lack facial expressions, body language and tone of voice – any signs that, in person, would tell you your colleague is just tired, not furious with you. A message accidentally written in all caps may come across as shouting, says Yuan. Other things that can come across as unintentionally rude include one-word replies (“Fine.” “Done.” “OK.”), jumping straight to demands without a greeting, leaving out “please” and “thank you”, and ignoring time-sensitive requests. (I also find it quite rude when people get my name wrong, but maybe that’s just me.)

When you’re busy or stressed, it’s easy for the receiver to project. “I can think of situations where I read an email and immediately heard a rude tone in my head,” admits Haun. “But when I took a step back and reread it later, it came across as much more neutral.”

Remote work, which has jumped from about 5–10% of employees before the pandemic to around 25% now, amplifies the problem. Without regular face-to-face contact, social isolation creeps in. “When people feel less connected to their colleagues, they may be more likely to interpret ambiguous messages as unfriendly or rude,” says Haun. And when things do go wrong over email, there are fewer natural opportunities to repair misunderstandings.

There’s a gendered dimension too. Robinson argues that women are held to higher standards of warmth and politeness in written communication: “Men can get away with one-liner directives without it coming across as rude, whereas women often have to preface requests with more niceties.” She once sent what she considered an assertive email to some superiors. They told her they were taken aback by her tone. “Had that email been signed by one of my senior male colleagues,” she says, “they would not have blinked.”

How to stop the spiral of incivility

Experts were unanimous in their advice: when a rude email lands, switch to live communication. “A quick phone call or face-to-face conversation is often more effective for resolving misunderstandings than a long email thread,” says Haun. It’s a great way to stop the spiral of incivility rather than escalating it, notes Giumetti.

If you have to reply in writing, pause first. “Responding in a neutral, professional way and clarifying intent – with something like ‘just to check I’ve understood correctly’ – can prevent conflicts from spiralling,” says Haun.

Robinson suggests interpreting ambiguous emails in the most generous way possible: assume the sender was busy, rushed or oblivious to their tone.

Prevention, of course, is better than cure. Giumetti recommends that organisations foster a positive psychological climate, introduce clear “netiquette” guidelines and set limits on after-hours email expectations – such as France’s policies limiting after‑hours email – because off‑hours are when people are more likely to be tired or not entirely sober. There should also be clear policies and reporting mechanisms for workplace mistreatment, including email incivility, he says.

Managers, says Haun, should model the communication they want to see, because if a leader fires off curt one-liners, their team will too.

One final thing to avoid? It’s easy to take out your frustration by shooting back a quick “per my last email”. According to Yuan, that phrase has become a coded way of expressing hostility. So if you find yourself about to type that phrase, shut your laptop and go for a walk instead.

• Clarissa Brincat is a freelance health and science journalist