![]() ![]() Her writing has also appeared in Wired, Vice, Allure, Slate, and more. She previously worked as a staff writer at Refinery29 covering women in the workplace. Ludmila Leiva is a writer, editor, and illustrator based between Brooklyn and Berlin. But then, I’ll remind myself that I’m only human, and hit send. I keep hearing/reading about this 'trick', so that people can stop saying, 'sorry' and use gratitude instead because its supposed to make yourself and the recipient feel better. But other days, I’ll draft an email after a slight delay and instead of saying “sorry” I write “thank you.” I might hesitate for a moment, or take a deep breath. IMHO, its awful to say 'Thanks for your patience' instead of saying 'Sorry for the Delay'. consumed by guilt about work, or tempted to delete my email accounts altogether. I’m still tackling the unread messages in my inbox. I can't express enough how much your patience has helped me in my life. You never gave up on me and I am forever grateful for that. Even when I was at my worst, you were always patient and understanding. What’s more, this practice is a great litmus test for the types of people I want to work with. 'Your patience has been a shining light in my life. Changing my relationship with email isn’t an overnight fix, but by thanking people for their patience rather than expressing regret, I’ve slowly started to heal the toxic relationship I once had with my inbox. ![]() After all, if I’m late to respond to something, there is generally a good reason for it. I believe there is an important difference between apology and accountability. I still (ironically) have work to do when it comes to developing better boundaries with work, but the past month helped me set a new standard: I’ve stopped apologizing for delayed email responses. Whether it’s the expectation of a response at all hours of the day or that haunting feeling after deciding to wait until Monday to respond to a Saturday email, these habits are unhealthy. Though it’s hard to pinpoint what exactly caused that- late-stage capitalism, social media, lack of boundaries-our relationship to work, and specifically work emails, is resulting in serious psychological consequences. Modern work culture doesn’t make enough space for people’s humanity. With Tenor, maker of GIF Keyboard, add popular Thank You Again For Your Patience animated GIFs to your conversations. And so while part of me still wants to ask forgiveness, I’ve started to substitute an alternative: “Thank you for your patience.” Staring at the blinking cursor inside one of hundreds of emails I’ve had to compose over the past few weeks, I’ve reflected a lot on this idea. I’ve heard it said that expressing gratitude can be better than apologizing I once saw a comic by Yao Xiao that beautifully illustrated the concept. Some emails sat unanswered for weeks-I simply didn’t have the energy to respond. Although I did what I could to keep clients and collaborators informed of what was happening, I eventually found myself staring at a ballooning inbox. During that time, anything not directly tied to my emotional survival faded into the background, work emails included. ![]()
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