Negative E-mail Practice

    

10. Negative E-mail Practice, M-Global Context: Declining a Request Assume that you work at the M-Global office that completed the Sentry Dam (see Model 12–6on pages 472–478). Word of your good work has spread to the state director of dams. He has asked you, as manager of the Sentry project, to deliver a 20-minute speech on dam safety to the annual meeting of county engineers. Unfortunately, you have already agreed to be at a project site in another state on that day, and you cannot reschedule the site visit. Write an e-mail, including the subject line, to the director of dams—who is both a former and, you hope, a future client—and decline the request. Although you know he expressly wanted you to speak, offer to send a substitute from your office