Fjob Email To Senior

---
name: fjob-email-to-senior
description: Drafts an email or chat message to a senior colleague with the point and the ask first, a subject line that names the ask, a clear deadline and a tone check against what you meant. Use for "run fjob-email-to-senior", "email to my director", "how do I word this to a senior person", "make this email shorter", "rewrite my message to my boss", "bottom line up front", "does this sound rude", "chase a senior colleague politely", part of the Nail Your First Job with Claude Pack by Polar Bear.
---

# Email to a Senior Colleague

## When To Use
You rewrote a two-line email to a director five times and it still opens with "Sorry to bother you". Use this for any one-off message upward: a question, a request for a decision, a heads-up. It answers one question: will the reader know what you need from them within the first line?

## When Not To Use
For the routine Friday report, use Weekly Update to Your Manager. When two people want your time on the same day, use Priority Clash Reply, which builds the trade-off first. A two-word reply to a quick question needs no method at all.

## Inputs
- Your bullet points: what you need, from whom, by when, and why it matters
- Who the reader is (role, how well they know you) and the channel (email or chat)
- Your current draft, if you have one, and any thread it answers
If you have none of this, I start from one sentence on what you need and mark the output as a first draft.

## Approach
Bottom line up front, as set out in US Army Regulation 25-50, puts the point and the ask in the first line, then only the context the reader needs. Plain English, as the Plain English Campaign's free guides describe it, keeps the sentences short and the verbs active. The judgment is cutting: new starters bury the ask under three paragraphs of apology, and a busy reader skims, misses it and answers a different question, or none.

## Workflow
1. Ask at most three questions: what does your employer's AI policy allow for this, and which Claude account are you in (work-provided or personal); what exactly do you need the reader to do, and by when; is this bad news or sensitive? If the message holds client or internal detail, run Data Check Before You Paste first and write with [placeholders] you fill in your mail app.
2. Write the bottom line: one or two sentences with the point and the ask ("Could you approve [item] by [date]?"). If you cannot write it, you are not ready to send; say so.
3. Add the minimum context: only what the reader needs to act, in two or three short sentences. Move the history to a link or cut it.
4. State the deadline and what happens if there is no answer ("If I have not heard by [date], I will [default]").
5. Write a subject line that names the ask ("Decision needed by [date]: [topic]"). Size to the channel: a chat message is two or three lines, an email fits on one screen.
6. Plain English pass: short sentences, everyday words, active verbs; cut hedges such as "just", "I was wondering if" and "sorry" that hide the ask. For bad news or a sensitive topic, keep one line of context before the point and say why.
7. Tone check: I say back in one line what the message sounds like ("direct and polite", "a bit apologetic"). You compare it with what you meant, and change your words, not just mine.

## Output Format
```markdown
# Email to a Senior Colleague
**To:** [role] · **Channel:** [email / chat] · **Policy check:** [what your policy allows, account used]
**Subject:** [Decision needed by date: topic]

[Bottom line: the point and the ask, one or two sentences]

[Minimum context, two or three sentences]

[Deadline, and what happens if there is no answer]

[Sign-off in your usual style]

## Tone check
- What it sounds like: [one line]
- What you meant: [your words]
- Placeholders to fill before sending: [list]
## Decision
You decide whether, when and how to send it. The reader decides on the ask by [date].
```

## Done When
- The ask is in the first two sentences and the subject line names it.
- There is a date, and a default if nobody answers.
- The length fits the channel and every placeholder is listed.
- You have compared the tone check with what you meant.

## Quality Bar
- Drafted from your bullet points in your voice; Claude never writes as if it were you in a live conversation.
- No apology for existing; one "thanks" is enough.
- Facts and dates come only from what you gave; anything unsure stays as a [placeholder].
- Bad news is not softened until it disappears: the point stays in the message.
- You read, check and send it; Claude never sends in your name.

## Next
Run fjob-meeting-notes (Meeting Notes and Actions) to capture the meeting this message sets up.

## About the makers

This pack is made by Polar Bear, a consultancy built by ex-McKinsey founders with a dream to make AI work for People, not instead of them. We help our clients build people systems and AI-first ways of working, and we run our own company on Claude. If your team has outgrown the self-serve version, message Pauline (linkedin.com/in/paulinebertry).