Last week I published a post about how to get your Upwork account approved — and got this response from an FTW reader:
As an impulsive person by nature, I LOVE this. Here’s a guy who was about to do something self-destructive on impulse, but he held back…and was handsomely rewarded for his restraint.
Not everyone comes out of these situations so clean.
In fact, this reminded me of a time when I saw a similar situation handled completely differently.
It happened back when I was managing a local business.
One morning I received an angry email from my boss. He’d attached a screenshot of the previous day’s call logs… To his shock and horror we’d received over a dozen incoming calls that day — yet no one had answered a single one of them.
Naturally, he demanded to know WHY. To make things worse, I noticed he’d CC’d several of our mutual bosses on the email, including the general manager, CEO, and even the owner of the store.
Normally I’d have been sitting there with a knot in the pit of my stomach, wondering what to say.
But this time I calmly took a few minutes to carefully plan out my response. Then I shot back the following reply:
“Hi Tom, thanks for checking in. Actually, there is a simple explanation for why none of yesterday’s phone calls were answered: Yesterday was Sunday, and, as I’m sure you know, we are CLOSED on Sundays. Btw, if you check today’s outgoing calls, you’ll see we’ve already called back all of the missed calls from yesterday. Hope you’ve had an equally productive morning!”
(Of course, I also made sure to CC all of our mutual bosses on that reply.)

Am I telling you this to brag? To rub “Tom’s” (not his real name) face in it? To show you how clueless bosses can be?
Well, yes.
But there’s also another reason I’m doing it: So you can avoid being THAT PERSON.
Over the years, I’ve gotten countless emails from people who didn’t take a moment to ask themselves, “Should I send this email out as-is?” Or even, “Should I send this email at all?”
If we’re being honest, I think most of us can admit we’ve fired off an email on impulse at one time or another. Fine. But the real question is how do you prevent this from happening in the future, before it turns into a career-torpedo?
A couple of helpful guidelines:
1) Make as few assumptions as possible. In fact if something seems off to you, assume it’s YOU who is missing something — until proven otherwise. When you think about how many things you actually know for sure, the number is shockingly small. A certain amount of assumptions are necessary to live (e.g. you can safely assume the sun will come up tomorrow), but beyond that they’re useless and can really screw you.
2) WAIT before sending email that’s emotional, knee-jerk, accusatory, or otherwise sensitive in nature. It’s best to wait at least a day — it’s amazing how much more clearly you see things after even a decent night of sleep. But at a minimum give yourself a few hours before firing it off, NO EXCEPTIONS.
And since other people will ignore these rules, it’s also good if you know how to deal with an incoming “torpedo” email, too.
If you’re ever on the receiving end of one, the first step is to determine the motive of the person who sent you the email.
In my example above, it was crystal clear that my boss was looking for any excuse to make me look bad. In fact, his prejudice was so extreme he was willing to stubbornly overlook obvious evidence that I was doing my job (how could staff members answer calls on their DAY OFF?). So it was completely appropriate and even necessary for me to deliver a swift, crippling response that would stop him from trying to mess with me again in the future.
But it’s important to recognize that impulsive, emotional emails aren’t always malicious — let alone declarations of war.
For example, I once worked with a freelancer who sent me an irate email ranting about the fact that I’d taken a few days to respond to his last message.
I’d be lying if I said my gut reaction wasn’t to write him back and be like, “Dude, why are you being so sensitive? I’ve just been busy…if you can’t chill out about this then we won’t be able to work together in the future.”
But there was an enormous difference between this case and the story I opened this post with. Can you see what it is?
I could tell this guy wasn’t intending to be malicious! In fact, he sounded as though he felt genuinely slighted by my delays.
When something like this happens, you have 2 choices.
The first is to react defensively. In this case, I could have simply told him that it sometimes takes me a few days to respond to emails, and he shouldn’t take it personally. That’s an OK option, but it’s 10x more powerful if you can say it in a way that lets the other person come to this conclusion on their own. (In their new book, The Power of Moments, the Heath brothers call this “tripping over the truth” — and it works wonders.)
So instead of writing him back with a lecture, I decided to ask a question that would make him instantly realize he’d overreacted.
Can you guess what it was?
I said, “Hi <NAME> — sounds like you’re pretty upset with me. I’m a little confused… Did I miss a payment to you or something?”
This really put things into perspective for him. Of course, I hadn’t missed any payments, and our project was on schedule — so there was no reason for him to react so negatively to having to wait a couple of days to hear from me. He immediately apologized for his outburst, and we’ve been great friends ever since.
Now, I’d love to hear from you about this…
Have you ever done anything impulsively? Or been on the receiving end of someone else behaving in a hastily manner?
What happened? Did it turn out OK? If not, did you learn anything? I’d appreciate it if you took 30 seconds to leave a comment below and share your experience!
-Danny
PS In today’s hectic world, I believe we need to be part of a community — more than ever before. But let’s be honest: Facebook groups and online forums can be a tremendous time suck.
The good news is that the comments section of the FTW blog is what I call a “5-Minute Community” — with readers posting insightful comments, and even having back and forth discussion and helping one another. (For example, one of my favorite posts has over 100 comments — many of which are more insightful than many other people’s entire blogs!)
Please take a moment to comment on today’s post below.
Creative Commons image via Erik Drost
This anecdote resonates deeply with me.
I’ve found myself on both sides of similar situations.
Biting the tongue is a skill on the brink of extinction
Hi Danny,
You really know how to strip down a topic and lay it out very clearly and simply.
I am very sensitive and have a great tendency to overreact. I have used the wait a couple of days to investigate my feelings more deeply and that works wonders.
Thanks for the post.
Cheers
Howard
Hey, you amazing people. Is it still a thing to answer “job-related questions” before writing the cover letter on UpWork?
Do employers still see the answers to questions first?
Thank you all. Thank you Danny!
Screening questions? Yes, that tactic is still current. Danny talked about it in his article on Proposal Mistakes.
Great reminders and insightful points on staying grounded!
Here I thought you were going to dig into someone for “whoa and behold,” which is almost as bad as “wala” (voila). 🙂
When we are driven by our emotions so much, it’s difficult for us to be rational. When I am angry, I usually stay silent, so that the situation won’t get worse.
Hi Danny, Recently, as a result of doing well on a “Test/task,” I was invited to a bootcamp and assigned a mentor rewriting a series of their emails and text messages to their customers. I did the work, but with no feedback or guidance. Got paid, all good. They emailed me saying they wouldn’t be going forward with a longer contract. I said I’d appreciate any feedback they could share. And they did get back to me with feedback, a rarity. I was bugged though, and I explained why in my reply to them: “Thank you so much for taking… Read more »
Hi Danny, Well, I wrote an angry letter to the editor of my local newspaper. In this case, the media wrongfully blamed my co-workers for the death of an incarcerated person. You see, I worked in the fingerprint section of the Police Department. The poor soul who got locked up had the triple misfortune of standing by her man (she had done nothing wrong, but mouthed off to the police as they detained her boyfriend); being locked up on a Friday (which meant she had to wait until Monday to be arraigned); and, being diabetic. On top of everything else,… Read more »
Hi Danny. I am not the person who normally act in an impulsive way. But like everyone, sometimes I do that. My experience tell me that no one of the times I have acted in an impusive way because I was angry I got a positive result. But I have learnt too, because of my job, that there are situations where you have to act in an impulsive way to take advantage of a particular moment. If you try to calculate every posibilites before doing something, usually you will lost more than one oportunities. Remember: Maquiavelo prefers an impulsive leader,… Read more »
I love this perspective, thank you for sharing it!
Hi, Danny. I love the first two sentences you wrote to that freelancer, but I don’t agree with “did I miss a payment or something?” You know you didn’t miss a payment, so it’s disingenuous to ask. I wonder if there’s a way to reassure them you had no malicious intent (obviously they were feeling a bit insecure), while getting them to realize they overreacted and owe you an apology.
All the best. You run the most awesome blog, and your course is life-changing.
Deena
I agree with this. Personally, I’d be pretty annoyed if you sent me a message saying “Did I miss a payment to you or something?” – comes across quite aggressive to me.
I wouldn’t say aggressive so much as sarcastic. And given that we don’t have the exact text that this irate customer sent to Danny it may well be that some sarcasm was needed to adjust their perspective.
Thanks, I’m very happy to hear you’re enjoying the blog and the course! Hope you’re doing great too.
Very good lesson. I’ve always evangelized a 24-hour rule: Wait 24 hours before responding to any email that makes you mad, sad, or even annoyed. It’s never failed me.
Now… If I could just get a handle on my passive-aggressive side when people hit reply-all.
Any tips for that?
It’s a good rule. My advice: Focus on what you can control. What else can you do?
Great article – good advice & very satisfying to read about the mean boss’s come-uppance! lol
An additional word to the wise… Don’t even put an email address in the “Send To” box until you’re sure you want to send it. It’s gut-wrenching to realise you hit a wrong key & sent your blunt, knee-jerk torpedo BY MISTAKE!
(Yes, I speak from experience)
Keep up the good work,
Andy
Great advice — thank you!