I recently received an email from an individual that was marked urgent. The subject line of this email was an individual’s name. Paired with the urgent email status, I assumed the worst. I panicked and opened the email immediately.
The email was extremely non-urgent, more of an ‘FYI’ type message. If it was still waiting unopened in my inbox a week or a month later, no one would have noticed. Life and work would have carried on the same as before. When I question the sender about the status of the message, they responded that they knew that I was extremely busy and that they wanted to make sure I read it.
This peer works in a hospital. Urgent in the hospital setting means code blue. Unless it directly relates to saving a life, I rarely see urgent when working with hospitals.
When sending email communication to volunteers, board members, or donors, remember that an urgent situation for us may not translate to urgent for them. Yes, do get info out in a timely manner. No, do not use the red urgent flag.
This person abused the way they communicated with me – you can bet that every email I receive from this sender will be last to be clicked open. Make sure that the status and subject lines of your emails are appropriate. Make the person on the other end know that you respect their time.
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