9 Passive-Aggressive Things People Say in Emails — and the Best Way to Respond to Each

If that snippy coworker is being passive-aggressive in an email (again!), resist the urge to send an equally snarly response. "The goal of the passive-aggressive person is to get someone else to visibly act out the anger that they have been concealing," social worker Signe Whitson, author of "The Angry Smile," told Business Insider. "Any time their covertly hostile email is responded to with overt hostility, the passive aggressive person succeeds." Don't fight fire with fire.