Who Wrote This Email?

After spending the prior years working in academia, I took my first healthcare job at the age of 28 and soon moved into recruitment.  One of the smallest, yet most surprising things about the transition was my introduction to “signature line email templates”.

This was not a thing in my previous job, and it confused me.  I was being handed a pile of templated emails from my predecessor and told to create these as “signatures” in Outlook.  With this technique, I could theoretically make it through most of my day without actually composing a message to any candidate or internal stakeholder.

“Absolutely not!” was my internal reaction, but as a new employee trying to make a good impression, I dutifully spent hours creating a library of signature line emails that covered almost every topic I’d encounter at my job.

I used a couple.  Once or twice.

Many people who read this will be utilizers of email templates, and that’s ok.  For me, it’s a “no”, but for others, it might be the exact time saver they need to do an excellent job.

I recently found an Instagram post that suggests a seemingly contradictory title:

“The peace you are looking for is in the work you are avoiding.”

Our gut reaction is probably “No! The work I’m avoiding is not going to bring me peace. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be avoiding it!”  But as you scroll through the images of the post, the message becomes clear.

A nun from the same order shared that when St. Teresa of Calcutta (“Mother Teresa”) would clean the nunnery sink, she left it cleaner than before.  Mother Teresa is known for many things other than housecleaning, but perhaps she was following in her namesake’s example.  St. Teresa of Avila was quoted as saying “God walks among the pots and pans”.  In other words, peace and satisfaction can be found in the most ordinary tasks, like washing a dish…

…or writing an email.

When you do small things with your full attention, you do them well.  Although the Instagram post takes a religious slant and suggests that holiness can be found there, I would argue that satisfaction, a sense of accomplishment, and the ability to hold one’s head high can also be found in not avoiding the annoying tasks.

Taking time to do things well and to do things right can make all the difference in your candidates’ experience as well as in your life.