You’ve typed it. Maybe you’ve sent it. “Per my last email” feels efficient — a quick way to point someone back to information you already gave them. But what it actually communicates is: you didn’t read what I sent, and I’m annoyed about it.
Here’s the problem. The phrase doesn’t fix the miscommunication — it just documents your frustration. And in a workplace, frustration on paper outlives the moment that caused it. Six months from now, nobody remembers why you were annoyed. They remember that you were.
What’s actually happening when someone “misses” your last email
Most of the time, it’s not laziness. It’s volume. The average professional gets dozens of emails a day, and yours was one line in a wall of text, or buried under a subject line that didn’t say what mattered. If people keep missing the same information, that’s data about your communication — not their attention span.
The fix: lead with what changed
Instead of resending the same message with an edge to it, ask yourself what’s different about this follow-up. Usually it’s urgency, or a new consequence. Say that.