The Most Annoying Phrases to Read in a Work Email There are some phrases used in emails that really irritate workers. Perhaps there's even a phrase that your boss or your colleague uses that winds you up. And it might be one of these! A survey by email company ZeroBounce asked workers about the phrases that make them feel stressed. At the top of that list was: "Need this ASAP." "ASAP" means "as soon as possible." It's easy to see why that might cause a person stress — it means you have work to do, and fast! In fact, a lot of the phrases on the list are like this — they're asking the recipient to do something, or perhaps letting them know there's a problem. "Can we chat?" came next on the list. Then it was, "Per my last email." That often means the recipient forgot to do something they were asked to do earlier! Also on the list was the phrase: "Friendly reminder…" The problem with this phrase is that the person getting the email probably doesn't feel that the reminder is very friendly. So maybe it should be: "Stressful reminder"! ZeroBounce found that even when messages don't include these phrases, emails still cause people stress. The average person said they get really stressed when they have at least 65 unread emails in their inbox. Others only need to have 10 messages to make them feel stressed. Some people also said they get stressed just from looking at the subject of an email. And they said there's nothing worse than getting an email with no subject!