We want to hear from you! Scroll to the bottom of this page to fill out a form discussing a “workplace emergency” you’ve experienced, and we might reach out to you for more information or to share your story on air.

It's a situation many of us will be familiar with and is enough to give at least momentary heart palpitations: An urgent email with a subject line in all caps and a red exclamation point. A Slack message that breaks through the after-working-hours wall of silenced notifications. A call from your boss to your personal cell, requesting that you log back on and put out whatever fire is happening in your workplace.

But in reality, what, it's a spreadsheet or report you have to send along? That’s why the fire brigades were called? Can't this urgent “workplace emergency” just wait until tomorrow?

That's a question that some workers — especially younger ones — are increasingly asking themselves. For more on this, let’s turn to Adam Grant, an organizational psychologist with the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School and host of the podcast “ReThinking.” He joined “Marketplace Morning Report” host David Brancaccio to talk about the changing definition of a workplace emergency. The following is an edited transcript of their conversation.

David Brancaccio: Do you see a pushback to this need to respond to whatever is deemed an emergency?

Adam Grant: I do. I'm hearing this consistently from my students at Wharton, and it's something I've been seeing in a lot of workplaces — people saying, "Look, your emergency isn't necessarily my problem, especially if it's not in my job description."

Brancaccio: Oh, especially if it's not on my job description! Waving the job description, that used to be a fatal career move back when I was a lad.

Grant: Deadly back in the day. And, you know, now it's a question of who has power. You know, is it employers in a world where it's increasingly difficult to find a job? Or is it employees who can embarrass you on social media?

Brancaccio: How does a grown-up thinking about good management think about both declaring workplace emergencies if you're a manager, and responding to commands marked urgent with all these exclamation points? Like, what's best practice?

Grant: Look, David, my first advice to leaders and managers is just take a step back and ask: What are the problems that could have a severe and lasting impact on our workplace if they're not addressed immediately? And if I know what those are, it's a lot easier to save "Urgent! Emergency!" for when there actually is something of consequence. I think, in the moment then, the next thing you do is you let people know not just that the issue needs to be handled, but also why it's important. And I think if you just stop to take the time to explain, "Hey, this is why this is an urgent issue," you find that people are much more reasonable in response.

Brancaccio: I remember exactly where I saw this and when. It was 1986 in the newsroom of Channel Five TV in San Francisco, a news editor had a printed sign above his edit station in bold: "Notice: Lack of planning on your part does not constitute an automatic emergency on my part." That's nearly 40 years ago. People have been resentful of people reaching in and overturning your workday for a very long time.

Grant: Yeah, I think that's true. I think one of the things that we ought to be doing is being a little bit clearer about what the expected timeframe is for a response. So your "Urgent! All hands on deck now!" message is a lot more legitimate if your other emails say, "No rush on this. Would be great to hear back from you by the end of the week," or "It would be very helpful to get an answer in 48 hours." And if we were just a little bit clearer about our expectations, I think when we really need people to step up, they would be more willing to do it.

We're looking for listeners' stories about "workplace emergencies." Has your mind changed about what really constitutes an emergency at work? About what can be left unread or unattended for another day, and the world won't end? How do you handle urgent requests at work or after hours?

Fill out the form below to let us know.