The revised artwork was due yesterday. Now, you're running late and honestly, you're a bit annoyed. It's time to write an email to the designer to find out what's up because there has been no communication. After a few iterations, you’re ready to send it when a new message from the designer arrives: “I’m sorry I’m running late. I’ve barely slept this week.”
You read the email you’ve just written again. Your deadline hasn’t changed, and you still need the artwork. Yet something in your response has shifted. You’re beginning to consider the person who will receive your words, along with the work you need them to finish.
That small shift interests me. A moment ago, the designer occupied a place in your day as the person holding up the project. Now there’s a glimpse of the day they’re living, and it gives you pause. You can still ask for what you need while giving some thought to what your reply will add to an already difficult week.
We can be wonderfully articulate about the circumstances affecting our own day. Someone else’s delay, meanwhile, may have been entered into the record as evidence that they need to get on with it. There’s a little selective generosity in that, and I suspect most of us have practiced it.
The designer’s mention of lost sleep has interrupted that assumption. Their life was already unfolding around the work before they offered an explanation. The message has brought more of that life into our attention, reminding us that we’ve been waiting for work from a person whose week contains much more than our project.
I think this is part of what changes when another life matters to us. We begin to include that person’s experience in decisions we might otherwise make entirely from our own side of the exchange. Our needs still have a place, and so do the circumstances in which we’re asking someone to meet them.
Back at the screen, you revise the email. You acknowledge the difficult week and ask the designer to suggest a delivery time they can manage, so you can work out what needs adjusting at your end. The project still needs attention, and now the conversation has space for both people involved in it.
The designer will never see the first email. They’ll read the one you chose to send after their day had become a little more present to you. Something of that recognition will reach them through your words. Perhaps a little more grace belongs in the words we’re about to send.