I regularly exchange emails with two remote contractors who are from Indonesia. I will need to send a work related email later today or tomorrow. Should I mention anything about the recent terrorist attack, for example "I hope everything is OK", or would that be inappropriate?
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4I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it's about social etiquette, not English as such.– FumbleFingersJan 14, 2016 at 13:40
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1Might be on topic at workplace.se?– AndyTJan 14, 2016 at 15:02
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Related if not an exact duplicate: What is an appropriate response to the death of a coworker's loved one?– Philip KendallJan 15, 2016 at 13:51
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1 Answer
If you want to send condolences, send it in a separate message. First, mentioning it as an aside to some other message could be construed as not giving the event its due. Second, it's usually wise in business correspondence not to commingle issues. For example, if you were to discuss two completely separate business issues with these individuals, you would generally do so in two separate messages, the reason being that the message may require other people's attention and may need to get forwarded on to be seen by other eyes. If that happens, your personal message gets passed around, replied, cc'ed, forwarded, replied again, etc., possibly for weeks or longer, and the tragedy gets reread and relived every time. My advice, stick to the topic at hand and send condolences separately.