I have been reading in a lot of blogs recently, from the web recruitment software companies to the biscuit factories, that emailing can be both a blessing and an enormous irritation. People are starting to rely too much on emails for everything. Need an answer to a quick question? Email. Want someone to make you a cup of tea? Email. Don't have time to explain the same thing to 5 different people? Email.
However, people have started to realise that though emails are extremely useful in this wacky modern age where speed of communication seems to only be getting faster, they are also becoming an overwhelming hindrance. There is nothing more depressing then coming into work in the morning and finding your inbox telling you that you have 42 unread messages. After you fetched your hot beverage needed to deal with this influx, you start to trawl through.
And this is what you find:
15 are things with attachments that, fair enough, could only have been emailed and so are acceptable.
10 are various replies to just three threads that have been sent to every unfortunate person on the CC and BCC list.
7 are various newletters, updates and LinkedIn changes
10 are absolutely pointless (offers for time shares in Lanzarote and such like)
Out of all these emails, 47% were a complete waste of your time. Your grip tightens on your mug as you see that you have wasted 25 minutes of your morning just on emails that have been sent since you left work the previous day. In the meantime, 15 more emails have come through.
Does it never end? No, is the short answer.
I am completely guilty of email crimes too, having been waiting for a reply to an email for an hour before tutting at my complete foolishness and simply picking up the phone and calling the person. Hereafter, I intend to be more email courteous and perhaps everyone else will start to be too. If people remember to put phone numbers on the end of emails, you greatly increase the chance of actually receiving a phone call! You see, sometimes telepathy is such a hit and miss talent..
Well, until we get rid of emails and use owls like in Harry Potter.
-Emily
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