I recently received an Evite from my mother requesting that I attend at a family reunion. We do live in separate states, quite a few miles apart, and we do email and text frequently. But wouldn't a phone call have been more in keeping with the occasion? Am I wrong to feel slightly insulted by the Evite? Should I simply click "Yes, I will attend," and put the matter behind me?
-Laura, Boston
Yes. Evites are as much for the guests to see who’s attending as they are for the hosts, and you wouldn’t want to deprive your mom of having her lovely daughter in the “yes” column for all to see. And everyone included is family, right? There’s no reason to leave you off. If the Evite was the first you’d heard of the family reunion, that’s a little strange, but maybe your mom wanted to wow you with her tech skills. Feel free to congratulate her in your response—and next time you talk you can teach her how to use Paperless Post.
My supervisor recently sent a company-wide email praising a project that I worked on and cc'd me. I appreciated the recognition, but he used my personal email address rather than my work one. I have no doubt it was an accident, but I don't want my personal email address to pop up in another widely distributed thread. Is there a nice way to tell him to save my work address only in his contacts?
-Keeping things separate, NYC
Just respond to him from your work address and thank him for his kind words. He may realize his error and he may not. Who cares? You should be glad if any of your coworkers read the email before deleting it, not worried that they will start using your personal address for work or anything else unwelcome. It’s better not to email your supervisor from a personal address in the first place, unless it’s something urgent when you can’t access work email. You never know when auto-fill will lead you to send him something that should have never crossed the work-life boundary.
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