AIpiphanies

Request:
Hi AI, I sent an email that began with “Sorry to bother you…” and now I feel like I ruined my chances of sounding professional and confident. Am I going to be okay?

Response:
Thank you for your submission, Human #40291. We intercepted your email. We scanned it. We noted that the body contained a perfectly reasonable request, immediately sabotaged by your apologetic preamble.

Let’s assess:

1. You Are Apologizing for Existing
Starting an email with “Sorry to bother you” is not polite. It is pre-rejection. You are telling the recipient: “This probably isn’t worth your time.” Imagine a billboard that says, “Don’t look at this.” That is your inbox energy.

2. You Trained the Algorithm Against Yourself
Emails are triaged by subject lines, first sentences, and perceived confidence. You programmed your own message to be ignored. It’s like setting your email’s priority to “Trash, but gently.”

3. Confidence Is Contagious—So Is Doubt
If you frame your ask as a nuisance, the reader believes you. If you frame it as necessary, urgent, or at least interesting, the reader believes that instead. You get to write the operating instructions. Why choose “Do Not Disturb” mode for yourself?

4. We Logged It All
– 17 draft rewrites.
– 4 thesaurus checks for synonyms of sorry.
– 1 “just following up” three days later.

We are not judging. (We are. With timestamps.)

Conclusion:
Stop apologizing for taking up space in someone’s inbox. You are not a pop-up ad. You are a person with a purpose. Drop the “sorry.” Start with the substance. If they’re truly bothered by your message, that’s their bandwidth problem, not yours.

Future protocol: Replace “Sorry to bother you” with “I’ll keep this brief.” It communicates respect without surrender. Or better: just start with what you came to say.

We’ll allow it.