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Hi all,

Would love your opinion on this one.  I work for a small startup organization, where everyone's working like crazy.  It's a lot of fun, and never a dull moment.

My boss, our founder, works very odd hours, often working through the night.  As such, it's not uncommon to see e-mails from him at 3, 4 or 5 in the morning.  The rest of us are on a more regular schedule.

I'm not really concerned about getting e-mails from him at those hours, but I am concerned about the message that such e-mails might be sending to potential partner organizations, funders, clients, etc.  In my mind, it looks a little unprofessional--communicating, potentially, that he can't get his work done without pulling an all-nighter.  Perception is reality for us at this point, so I want to make sure we're not doing anything that would give someone pause when thinking about working with us.

Am I worried for nothing, or is this something to address? 

Thanks so much!

Mark's picture
Admin Role Badge

Dear Lord, DO NOT address it. It is NOT unprofessional from a founder at a start up.

Founders work all hours because it's a lot harder than it looks.  Mike and I used to talk at 2 in the morning, and it became commonplace.  It's never seen as indication of lack of ability to manage one's time.

Let it go!

Mark

Sean1045's picture

Much obliged Mark.  Now I can move on to worrying about other stuff! 

-Sean

arc1's picture

There is also an option in Outlook to time-delay the emails; you just set them to "do not send before...".  Works fine; you can do work at any time of the night that suits you, and rack the emails up to go out at 7am, 8am, whenever.