The Email Draft That Made Me Question Everything I Thought I Knew About Being Smart
Been staring at this email for 37 minutes. Not writing it. Just staring.
It's a Friday off request. That's it. That's the email.
Jake from Sales had his whole bonus screwed up yesterday. Walked into HR. Fixed it. Done. Meanwhile I'm here rewriting "Hi Sarah" for the ninth time because what if the comma looks passive aggressive?
My confidence is shot.
So There's This Thing
Jake has it. That thing where you can just... say stuff. To people. Without drafting it seventeen times first.
I used to think it was confidence but it's not. My friend Sarah (different Sarah) is anxious as hell but she still managed to negotiate her salary last week while I've been putting off asking for a Friday off since January. JANUARY.
Emotional intelligence, apparently. Which sounds like BS but whatever, companies are losing $8.8 trillion because people like me can't function, so maybe they're onto something.
The List Nobody Asked For
Fine. Here's what the experts say we need:
- Self-awareness: Knowing you're not actually mad about the dishes
- Self-regulation: Not sending that email you typed at 2am
- Motivation: Still showing up even though everything's on fire
- Empathy: Actually listening when someone talks instead of waiting for your turn
- Social skills: Having conversations that don't end with someone crying in the supply closet
Cool. Great. Where was this lesson in school? Because I can still recite the quadratic formula but I literally googled "how to disagree professionally" last night.
You know what's stupid? I have a master's degree. Published papers. Led projects. But someone says "can we talk?" and my brain immediately assumes I'm fired.
Tried everything. Meditation made me fall asleep. Therapy's great if you have $150 to burn every week talking about your email anxiety. That gratitude journal is somewhere under my bed, probably.
Found this Capacity Coach thing. Emergent Skills. Teaching me stuff like the Worry Window where you literally schedule your panic time. Sounds dumb but last week I actually got through a presentation without my hands shaking, so.
Whatever
Look I'm not trying to become some corporate robot who never has feelings. I just want to ask for time off without having a existential crisis. That's the bar. It's on the floor.
If you're reading this at 1am because you can't sleep thinking about that weird thing you said in the meeting, maybe we're all just trying to be slightly less of a disaster. That's probably fine.
Update: sent it. Two sentences. She said yes.
Now I'm worried the exclamation point in her reply was sarcastic.
