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Plus: Montana’s TikTok ban, Canada's wildfires and more. Bloomberg This is Bloomberg Opinion Today, an email about Bloomberg Opinion’s opinions about emails. [Sign up here](. Today’s Agenda - Emails and meetings are “[real work](.” - Montana’s [TikTok ban]( won’t work. - [Burberry]( must make quiet luxury work. - [Predicting]( [climate change]( is hard work. *Opens email* *Closes email* I apologize in advance, but this newsletter is about to get more meta than [a Christopher Nolan movie](. I get paid to write [this newsletter]( (at least that’s what my W-2 says). Every day, I get on my computer and try to write one *rly, rly good* email and send it to you, dear reader. But when I say it like that, it sounds kind of … lame? One email a day? That’s it? At the risk of triggering all the [inbox zero freaks]( out there, maybe I should be writing to you more often — at breakfast, lunch and dinner … or when you’re sitting on the toilet with your phone! It’s what [the laptop class]( deserves. Microsoft recently revealed that we spend [57% of our workweek]( chatting with colleagues via email, chat programs and meetings that may or may not have us [choking on hot dogs](. “Cue the stories about how little time we have for our ‘real jobs’ and ‘actual work,’” Sarah Green Carmichael writes. While tummy-tuck and hair-gummy marketing schemes have certainly contributed to the spam-ification of email (and ongoing civilian brain rot), [there is still plenty of value to be found in the inbox]( — including this email about emails on your [screen]( right now. “If you think email is ‘not your real work’ then you’ll be more likely to let messages pile up, or send poorly written missives that confuse people or create resentment,” Sarah writes. Everyone has a colleague who routinely hits “reply all” on mass emails that are sent to 294 employees … and if you don’t, maybe you’re the problem. Being “good at email" sounds like a sad skill that you’d put at the bottom of your LinkedIn bio if you had one when you were 15. But it’s not! You can’t regularly send out lengthy soliloquies, lest you tempt exasperation from your boss (or, as the case may be, editor). [Jess: Time to wrap this up? — Michael. ] And you can’t passive-aggressively pull the “just following up on xx” card 10 times in a row. It’s not cool! And people will start to get annoyed … or worse, [they’ll sue you](. “Messages bombard us, and we swat them back like so many swarming gnats,” Sarah writes, but it doesn’t have to be this way: “For organizations suffering from communication overload, leaders can help craft new norms,” which might entail killing off “[less-valuable projects]( so that employees would have time to answer emails during the day — instead of at night.” So, to the people in the world who still think that emails don’t qualify as, ahem, “actual work,” I have to ask: Do you think I’m … not working at all? If so, that is lowkey a major slay. I have conquered the dragon that is Corporate America, and you are reaping the fruits of my non-labor.[1](#footnote-1) Monta-Nah, You Can’t Do That Montana’s governor just [banned TikTok](, and everyone and their technologically challenged mother is asking: Wait, can you actually do that? While a lot of other states have limited access to the app for government employees, this is the first time a state has issued an all-out ban for everyone: Noah Feldman says the case will almost certainly be challenged in court because it violates the free-speech rights of both Montanans and the clock app itself. In the past, direct attempts to muzzle speech have almost always gotten the boot because of a legal principle called “strict scrutiny.” The best hope for Montana might be to tell the court that its ban will protect users from Chinese data collection — which would be the first claim of its kind. “I can’t think of another example in First Amendment history where the government tried to assert that reading or viewing some content would hurt you, not because the content itself is dangerous but because someone else might spy on you while you are consuming the content,” Noah writes. Plus, Montana is not Henry Kissinger: Not only is it a bit older, but it is not known for its foreign-policy expertise. “It should be obvious that we don’t want 50 state legislatures each trying to take the lead in shaping the US-China relationship,” he notes. As for the logistics of the proposed ban, “TikTok will be fined $10,000 for every day its platform operates on devices in Montana once the law takes effect on Jan. 1, 2024,” Skye Witley writes for Bloomberg News. But Noah says the court could easily make the case that such a ban would be unenforceable: “Montanans are still free to download the TikTok app of out-of-state and use it within the state, which doesn’t seem to make them very safe at all.” Read [the whole thing](. Telltale Charts Burberry shares dropped by 7% today after delivering meh US sale numbers. But Andrea Felsted says [the brand can easily turn things around]( by hopping on the quiet luxury train. If it can go “from simply premium to super-luxe,” “then Burberry has every chance of becoming the British LVMH.” The best way out of this trench just might be [the trench coat]( — one of Burberrys’s most famous products. Oopsies, remember when the Atlantic published [that column in 2007]( about global warming winners and losers? Less than two decades later, one of its purported “winners” — Canada — is in the midst of a [hellish wildfire season]( that has only just begun. “In reality, [nowhere on the planet can avoid]( negative effects from climate change,” Mark Gongloff writes. Just in the past week, we’ve seen the [strongest storm on record]( in the North Indian Ocean, a [record heatwave]( in Southeast Asia and [an Antarctic glacier]( that’s about to collapse. David Fickling says the speed at which warming is affecting the planet can seem dizzying [even to scientists who have dedicated their lives]( to studying it. Further Reading It’s [Walmart’s economy]( and we’re just living in it. — Leticia Miranda [Ja Morant’s gun-waving]( isn’t any more reckless than Tennessee law. — Francis Wilkinson [66,000 job cuts?]( All the more reason to sell your shares. — Chris Hughes Sorry, labor market bears: [That jump in jobless claims]( was fake. — Jonathan Levin Uh, do regulators really want to [lump Bitcoin]( in with casinos? — Lionel Laurent London is putting China’s “[century of humiliation](” on display. — Matthew Brooker South Africa’s president is desperate, and his [Ukraine peace mission]( shows it. — Bobby Ghosh ICYMI Pete Buttigieg [loves beer](. The [Frank founder]( got indicted. Disney World’s [Star Wars hotel]( is no more. Kickers A New York City club for [canceled people](. A party of [people who should be canceled](. [Tom Sandoval and Raquel Leviss]( are canceled. Johnny Depp was canceled, and [now he’s not](. Dolly Parton has [her own way]( to cancel people. Notes: Please send TikToks and feedback to Jessica Karl at jkarl9@bloomberg.net. [Sign up here]( and follow us on [Instagram](, [TikTok](, [Twitter]( and [Facebook](. [1] And thus concludes my Christopher Nolan fanfic, thank you for joining the ride. Follow Us You received this message because you are subscribed to Bloomberg's Bloomberg Opinion Today newsletter. If a friend forwarded you this message, [sign up here]( to get it in your inbox. [Unsubscribe]( [Bloomberg.com]( [Contact Us]( Bloomberg L.P. 731 Lexington Avenue, New York, NY 10022 [Ads Powered By Liveintent]( [Ad Choices](