When my partner Keith McCullar first entered the world of work 25 years ago, he would frequently return home in the evening dramatically out of sorts. He would grouse, complain, pick fights. None of this would have made much difference, but yours truly was always the target. During the course of the evening, Keith would let on that something happened at work that put him, let us say, on edge. This went on for quite a time, until I finally asked Keith the obvious question- ‘Do you take your work related problems out on me?’ He looked at me like I was more than a little dim and responded emphatically ‘Of course!’.
Although Keith thought to be a free lance punching bag was my role in life, I wasn’t too keen on it. Being a bit more mature in years and consequent experience, I suggested to Keith that he might try to mitigate a bit of his pent up irritation by directing it back toward those at work who had engendered it. Don’t pick a fight, but if you have a disagreement or feel put upon at work, don’t be afraid to give it voice. Keith gave this a try, and, pretty generally, it worked, and our domestic bliss was restored.
We all get angry though, don’t we? And frustrated? The constant dissipation of one’s anger is essential, unless we all want to be either the shooters or the random targets in shopping mall shootings.
Although some misdirected souls use assault rifles, it is surprising how many people use e-mail to say things they would never have the guts to say personally. So it’s always been, even with snail mail, and that nearly now extinct form of spleen venting, the letter to the editor of the local newspaper. My British friends still are firm believers in the efficacy of what they term a stropping letter. Personally, stropping letters always find their way immediately into whatever round file I find nearest at hand, or sometimes are joyfully fed into the paper shredder. My attitude is, if someone had some real issue that needed my involvement for resolution, they would have contacted me personally.
But the e-mail has almost entirely taken the place of the stropping letter in this country. As I think about it, the e-mail is the communicative equivalent of the assault rifle, or the high altitude bomb, something that can be lobbed onto a hoped for victim from a long way away. None of this had occurred to me until I was having a beer at a Christmas function last night and Hans Koch, a San Francisco builder-developer, joked about it. Considering all the crap Hans has doubtless put up with in the development of his great residential project, the Residences at Jackson Square, Hans must be the soul of equanimity. 
The city permitting and inspection process, the building trades, goofy neighbors with time on their hands- all with access to e-mail and all with what seems a mission from God to be transmitters of free-form rage.
What we both agreed on, though, was the often paradoxical nature of the hostile e-mail, paradoxical in that these are often follow-ons from what might seem positive face to face meetings. Who knows why they so degenerate? Keith McCullar, in his own comforting way, always tells me that I’m to blame, since I am known to bring out the worst in people. He, however, always tells me that personally: his e-mails are generally quite cordial.