A good part of my work(I work for the city government) is spent at a desk checking my emails. One thing that has always fascinated me is the infighting, drama, and politics worded in a very polite and work appropriate manner between workers, supervisors, maintenance, and so on by emails.

I am in a low ranking maintenance supervisory position is that is just low enough not to be involved in all this, but just high enough to be included in the group that gets to read everything that goes on. For example, my boss might reply to an arrogant manager that is making a work order by something such as, "I regret to inform you that we cannot take care of your department today because of blah, blah, blah", but the real meaning is "You're a jerk so you're on our back burner". And it's not just our department, it's the management and worker bees that do this too, to each each other. I remember one time there was an email war over reserved parking spaces. You would be amazed at how politely someone can say "Keep your BLEEPING car out of my parking space".

Do any of you that spend your work days fighting the E mail wars see any of this war with words used in a polite professional manner?

More proof that government employees don't do anything.

Yes, there is email drama where I work too. But when I'm involved I don't make one attempt at hiding the fact I'm calling my boss an idiot. Most times I just call him up directly and tell him I'm not doing what he is telling me to do because for several reasons, 1) It's a stupid idea and 2) he's an idiot for even suggesting it in the first place.

That's the problem with text; it can carry no connation, emotion wise, to the naked eye when read by a regular person. With a recent incident taking hold IRL, I have to very, very, VERY carefully word my statements and understand the people around me. Already have my suspicions about a relative of mine.

Well that's despicably un-professional, it's a first-come, first serve with regard to the car-parks were I work unless you've got a car-sharing badge in-which case you get access to the blue-spots up-till 9:30.