The 30-Minute Rule Puts You Back in Control
This simple step will spare you a world of unnecessary hurt.
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Survival Tool#3: The 30-Minute Rule
In the upside-down world of the toxic workplace, some basic protocols can save us a lot of heartache.
Let’s take the 30-Minute Rule.
The premise is easy enough:
Whenever responding to an email or message in a toxic workplace, leave at least 30 minutes before replying.
No ifs, no buts.
And if possible, you ask somebody who’s removed from the toxic workplace — a friend, relative or partner, for example — to read what you’ve written before you hit send.
The logic is pure self-preservation.
If we feel our sense of personal autonomy and integrity threatened enough times, as we will in a toxic workplace, our nervous system will shift into a constant state of low-level fight-or-flight activation.
That means that even relatively innocuous emails from toxic co-workers or managers can trigger a cascade of stress responses. The signs are unmistakable: Our heart races, our stomach knots, or we may feel waves of heat or cold.
There’s nothing wrong with these sensations — in fact, they show your body is responding intelligently to a perceived threat. But don’t act on them: Take them as signals to be extra alert, and apply the 30-Minute Rule before you go near a keyboard.
Because if you don’t, this intelligent evolutionary mechanism can lead you astray.
Hair-Trigger
Our system naturally wants to get rid of these uncomfortable feelings and return to a more comfortable baseline.
In our hyper-vigilant state, our brain jumps to a faulty conclusion: The quickest way to soothe ourselves is to fire back a response.
Bashing out a sharply worded email or Whatsapp may feel momentarily satisfying.
We might even congratulate ourselves for having said what we really think.
We’ve all done it, and we all know how this hair-trigger reaction only makes things worse.
In a toxic workplace, any time you write a message from an activated state, you’re handing ammunition to the people who want to see you fail.
Message Checklist
So, make it an iron-clad rule to allow 30 minutes before responding.
Have somebody read your message to check it over, and ask:
Is it scrupulously professional, respectful and polite?
Is an accusatory, defensive or passive-aggressive edge creeping in?
How would this sound if it was being read out loud in front of a judge?
Are the right people copied in? Could some be left out?
Do you even need to be sending this message at all?
Only once you’ve evaluated each of these questions should you hit send.
Summary
Whenever responding to an email or message in a toxic workplace, leave at least 30 minutes before replying. If possible, have someone removed from the situation read it first.
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I agree in principle. But you’re assuming here that a politely-worded email will elicit a more positive response for you than an angry one. That, perhaps even by definition, is not the case in toxic workplaces. My career would have been far better off had I sent more angry emails, rather than been polite and courteous to people who could simply then get away with ignoring me.
The advice you give, I’m very sorry to say after trying it for years, helps the bully, not the victim.
One great example of this that I cite in my book is former NYT executive editor Dean Baquet. He didn’t send polite emails when things didn’t go his way (in what is known to be a super toxic work environment). He punched the walls. It worked for him and his career was as successful as one can get. (He has spoken publicly about this.)