Email – Learning When to Save to Draft

Email – Learning When to Save to Draft

Towards the end of the workday today, I was experiencing some angst and frustration that I so wanted to share with my supervisor. As with many industries, I work in a field that embraces restructuring on a cyclical basis. Expand and contract.  Centralize and decentralize.  With management re-alignment comes the need to re-validate, re-authorize or re-approve various issues by the new management structure. This can cause frustration on many levels.

I was feeling a level of frustration this afternoon because I wasn’t getting the response I wanted to an inquiry on a re-authorization issue. I wanted to request an expansion of a privilege. Essentially, I was advised this was not the time. It wasn’t what I wanted to hear. I wanted to negotiate. That is what I do for a living. I negotiate. The instant message chat I’d opened was closed unceremoniously. There would be no further discussion.

My initial reaction was to pursue the issue via email. Fortunately, I called my levelheaded husband and read my email. He recommended I save it to draft, rethink the wisdom of pressing the issue, to reconsider what I really had to gain from being too assertive or confrontational. I needed to consider and to analyze the cost to benefit ratio.  Damn! He was right! I decided to retreat and regroup. I saved the email to draft.

Sometimes it does make sense to work within the system, accept what is, and be grateful for the flexibility I am afforded.  I withdrew, licked my wounds, checked my ego, and submitted the form as requested to reconfirm what needed to be reconfirmed.  Hopefully, I will now live to fight another day for something that is actually worth it!