My job involves a lot of email. It always seems to be just on the verge of getting the best of me...my inbox feels like that last five pounds you can't shed no matter how much you exercise. But I take comfort in the fact that this seems to be a universal truth among my colleagues. Sometimes I feel like our position descriptions should read:
Go to meetings. Write email. Repeat.
Today I had a complete meltdown when Outlook started sending me nasty-grams about my mailbox being over its size limit. Not only does it flash these insulting little warnings in the corner of the screen every minute or so, but it stops letting me send messages! And when you can't send email you can't get a darn thing done. So I was rendered useless at 3:30 on a Wednesday afternoon.
But there were only 40 messages in my inbox. No drafts. And I emptied my deleted items. So what gives?
Sent mail. The only possible explanation - everything's piling up in my sent mail. And I am certainly not deleting that! You know what happens when you delete your sent mail? You can no longer CYA. Know what that is?
Cover Your A**. And Lord knows that working with college students in a public educational institution requires all kinds of...coverage.
"This is why I have auto-archiving!" I wailed. I was a good kid and I did the right thing and I auto-archived like it was goin outta style but I'm getting the nasty-grams anyway and I can't do a darn thing and I've been rendered useless at 3:30 on a Wednesday afternoon!
Dagnabit.
So I call in the cavalry: The Tech Guy. But The Tech Guy didn't respond to my skype (cause that's how you get The Tech Guy, ya know. That, or set up a World of Warcraft character resembling you and e-wander into his neck of the magical forest to challenge him to a duel). So I went old-school and left The Tech Guy a voicemail.
After 30 minutes and a whole lot of gnashing-of-my-teeth, The Tech Guy arrives to find me sanitizing the office. Seriously - that's all I could do while rendered useless by that blasted sent mail. Three clicks later he surmises that my auto-archiving stopped. On November 20, 2009.
Well NO WONDER! That alone could have brought on the rapture.
So the Tech Guy rips open his shirt to reveal the super-hero insignia emblazoned on his chest and fixes it. He archives everything from November 20, 2009 to December 31, 2010. Roughly a year's worth of messages.
And then he showed me just how many messages there were. And I died a little inside. And then I felt the early-onset carpel tunnel which will surely be the end of me.
...
...
...
9490
Nine
thousand, four hundred and ninety.
Just shy of ten-blessed-THOUSAND emails.
Lawsie mercy.
And I was out of the office for at least five weeks last year!
Though you may have started to doubt it, there was actually a point in my telling you this. If you are a loyal reader it means you are probably also my friend and, as such, send me emails from time to time. And you probably know that I am rotten about responding. My replies are day-late, dollar-short if they even come at all. I have guilt about this. It's not the kind of gal I want to be, but it just happens. And now I know why! By the time you send
nine thousand, four hundred and ninety emails for work there's just not a whole lotta steam left to whip open the gmail when you get home. So from now on it's probably best to sent me a text.
Or Skype me.
Or set up a World of Warcraft character resembling you and e-wander into my neck of the magical
forest and plunk down on a toadstool.
Wait. Is World of Warcraft a card game? I'm pouring a glass of wine.
