“Some battles are won with swords and spears,” Tywin Lannister once remarked, “others with quills and ravens.” The Lord of Casterly Rock managed to dodge a career in corporate, but you get the feeling he would’ve been a whizz at office politics.

The battleground in a modern workplace is virtual. Shots are fired not in corridors or cubicles, but via the messages that arrive in one’s inbox. In these bloodless but ruthless duels, white-collar gladiators wield the email as a weapon, and those who are most adept emerge victorious. Microsoft Outlook may be a software, but it can be used to deliver hard blows – a fact this writer can confirm. There have been many occasions, for example, when he has been found weeping at his workdesk, only to later assure his colleagues that the tears were trigge

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