8 Secretly Aggressive Email Phrases And When To Use Them

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If you work in an office, you probably get approximately one billion emails a day with all sorts of corporate phrases that no one actually says in real life. Honestly, the fact that emojis and GIFs are semi-taboo in the corporate email world is beyond my understanding. Yes, I’m that millennial.

The worst part of email is that you never know what the f*ck people are TRYING to say. Sometimes it feels like people are trying to be so politically correct in corporate chatter that meanings get muddled. Like does following up actually mean, “why the heck did you not read my message?” (hint: yes, it does).

Have you ever asked a co-worker a question and had them come back with something like, “Per my last note”… To have your stomach drop and be like, “ouch”. This feels… passive-aggressive?! You’re not alone.

What’s a straightforward girl boss to do?!

To help you understand all the work drams coming your way in your inbox (grab some popcorn, babes), we have gladly written out a full-on dictionary (ok, eight) secretly aggressive email phrases, and what they mean. So next time you have that stomach drop feeling at work you can totally understand it! Lucky freaking you.

Here are 8 secretly aggressive email phrases and what they mean.

“Per My Last Message”

After you send an email with “per my last email” in it. pic.twitter.com/MArj5jVUaf

— Phillip Henry (@MajorPhilebrity) May 6, 2019

This means: Why didn’t you pay attention to my last message?! Your colleague is basically telling you to f*ck off and they already told you this answer. Freaking ouch.

This phrase is basically like saying, no I’m not going to just simply answer the question you asked. I’m going to acknowledge that you are literally an idiot and you should have more carefully read my email. I don’t love this phrase because odds are if someone is asking you a question that you already know the answer to, there was something unclear in your last email.

“Please Advise”

Tati Westbrook’s public video to James Charles is kinda like if you sent a passive aggressive email to a coworker and cced your whole company and then framed them for murder

— Alexis Paige (@_loxsmith_) May 13, 2019

This means: No, I’m not going to make a decision, you make one. Maybe you’re in an argument between two people and need them to make decisions for you, or maybe you’ve just had enough for one day. Whatever it is, this statement is passive-aggressive because you could just say, “what do you think?!”

“To Clarify”

This means: Something was misunderstood. Must clarify in a politically correct way so there’s not some massive confusion and yet, I still look like the good guy.

PS. I like this one.

“Thank You in Advance”

This means: You haven’t agreed to what I’m about to ask you, but the expectation is that you are going to do it anyway. If you are asking someone to go above and beyond for you, skip this phrase! It makes it sound like you are forcing someone to do something for you they haven’t agreed to yet.

“Following Up”

when my boss follows up on a project I was supposed to finish a week ago pic.twitter.com/O3gxVgoktG

— Betches (@betchesluvthis) May 14, 2019

This means: You haven’t responded to my email in the normal time frame. I’m going to remind you that you haven’t responded by started my message with “following up”. Lol. Like I know you’ve emailed me three times, of course, you’re following up. (Although being the extremely timely person that I am I use this one….every day)

“Checking In On Updates”

Sorry for the delay, this week has been insane! – me answering emails every day of every week

— Ashley Fern (@disco_infern0) March 21, 2019

This means: You probably didn’t finish a project or the person emailing you has crazy expectations. They want updates sooner than you provided, so they passive-aggressively emailed you about it. And although you want to replay back something equally as passiv- aggressive like, “k, thanks” you can’t. Ugh.

“Friendly Reminder”

This means: I mean, how many different ways are there to say, “f*cking respond to me?!!?” I could probably think of a million more. Once again another passive-aggressive way of saying, you didn’t respond so writing you another message to force you to email back to me. K cool.