As sweet and frothy as a strawberry milkshake, You’ve Got Mail – aka one of the greatest romcoms of all time (I’ll fight anyone who says otherwise) – spins a comfortingly familiar story by this point. The film, which dropped in the heady days of 1998, sees bookstore mogul Joe (Tom Hanks) fall head-over-heels for an unsuspecting Kathleen (Meg Ryan), who runs a teeny-weeny bookshop of her very own.

They’re business rivals, essentially, although they don’t yet know it. Indeed, as you’ve undoubtedly garnered from the title, the couple’s blossoming romance – for the first half of the film, at least – takes place almost entirely online, through a feverish flurry of emails and chat room messages.

“What will NY152 say today, I wonder,” says Kathleen in the movie’s opening scene, as an impossibly picturesque panorama of New York City flits across the screen (scored by The Cranberries’ Dreams, no less).

“I turn on my computer. I wait impatiently as it connects. I go online, and my breath catches in my chest until I hear three little words: ‘You’ve got mail’.

“I hear nothing. Not even a sound on the streets of New York, just the beat of my own heart. I have mail. From you.”

Oh Nora Ephron, your movie still gives me chills. Even now. Even when, yes, the plot of Netflix’s You – a TV series about a psychopathic bookstore murderer – feels unerringly similar to what is arguably your greatest work… right down to the name ‘Joe’. 

Enough about that, though. Enough. Because we already know that You’ve Got Mail is one of cinema’s greatest love stories: it has the instantly lovable leads, the gorgeous NYC backdrop, the enemies-to-lovers trope we so adore, the dazzling script, and the 90s soundtrack of our dreams. What so many of us have failed to realise, though, is that it offers up the sort of career advice that many of us would pay someone (a sort of… business therapist, perhaps) good money to impart upon us.

Now, this career advice comes in two parts, the first of which is the wisdom that Joe unwittingly gifts his business rival over messenger. You know, the one about The Godfather?

Here’s a refresher: “The Godfather is the I Ching. The Godfather is the sum of all wisdom. The Godfather is the answer to any question. What should I pack for my summer vacation? ‘Leave the gun, take the cannoli.’ What day of the week is it? ‘Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Wednesday…’ And the answer to your question is: ‘Go to the mattresses.’ You’re at war. ‘It’s not personal, it’s business. It’s not personal, it’s business.’

“Recite that to yourself every time you feel you’re losing your nerve. I know you worry about being brave; this is your chance. Fight. Fight to the death.”

I’m not saying the above is bad advice: far from it, actually. When it comes to defending your rights, your boundaries, your time as an employee, you and only you can take up arms and defend yourself: your career won’t take care of you, at the end of the day

But this dovetails perfectly with the career wisdom I do truly rate from You’ve Got Mail. And it comes from none other than my beloved Kathleen, shortly after her little Shop Around The Corner has been run out of business by the big bad Fox Books.

“What is [it’s not personal] supposed to mean?” she asks. “I am so sick of that. All that means is that it wasn’t personal to you. But it was personal to me. It’s personal to a lot of people. And what’s so wrong with being personal, anyway? Whatever else anything is, it ought to begin by being personal.”

Well, quite. Because business isn’t personal, until it is exactly that.

For the majority of employers, a contract is just a contract – a means to an end, and a way to get a job done. For the majority of employees, a contract is their work, their sweat and their time away from the people they love. It’s often, too, something that adds meaning to their lives. It’s a way for them to define themselves. It is entirely personal, not business.

So, what can we do with this advice – particularly in a year which has already been marked by mass redundancies and record unemployment rates? Well, we need to stop forcing ourselves to remain removed from the emotion of a business outcome and instead reconcile ourselves to the fact that almost everything in business is personal. To listen in order to understand, not reply. To exude passion for work and compassion for those around us. To collaborate. To acknowledge the fiercely quiet joy that comes from doing a job you truly love. To treat others with respect. To go to the mattresses sometimes, if only to show ourselves we care. To celebrate the soaring highs. And to allow ourselves the time and space we need to grieve the losses, too.

Sure, it might not end with a twinkling cover of Somewhere Over The Rainbow and a kiss with a stranger-turned-enemy-turned-lover in Central Park. But it will hopefully serve as the all-important reminder that our professional wellbeing comes from so much more than a paycheque.

Images: Getty