EEEEEMAIL
By Michael Floyd
Is it just me or are we getting more than our share of email lately? At work, our LAN mail system seems to CC: me on everything from new-employee announcements to lengthy discussions on which color to paint the women's restroom. In addition to "important" messages, my Internet accounts are filling up with unsolicited advertisements, bulk mailings, and other forms of junk messages. Worse, I'm being placed on email subscriber lists that I've never requested.
All told, I have five (count 'em, five) email accounts, some of which are artifacts from past lives. Between these accounts, I receive up to 200 messages per day. And like the mountain of postal mail piling up in my office, my email box is attaining unimaginable proportions.
The fact is that I'm spending a minimum of two hours per day reading and responding to email. The responses take time to compose. And because I don't want to look silly, I proof my messages for spelling, grammar, organization..., well, you get the idea. Many of the responses I send generate counterresponses. In the end, a conversation that should have taken five minutes over the telephone takes an hour or more, spread out over several days, of course. The problem has gotten so bad that I've written an application just to handle my email, and even written a book on the topic.
Don't get me wrong. Email serves a useful purpose. It allows me to collaborate with authors anywhere in the world. It's a great way to avoid the "phone-tag game." And I love the feedback (sometimes flames) we get from our readers (by all means, keep them coming).
