Ever since this post by my friend Katrina, she and I have been discussing email count. Inspired by her clean and empty inbox, I managed to whittle down my personal email inbox to just 24 emails. However, I told her that I was sure my work inbox held over 2000 emails. Well, today I actually checked and was astounded to find that my inbox count was 9,063! (That's total, not just new or unread and I was happy to find I only accumulated 284 new ones during the week I was off.)
The really pathetic thing - that's just since September 2006! WHAT IS WRONG HERE PEOPLE?
I will tell you. It's easier to shoot off an email than to PICK UP THE PHONE!!! (and yes, that sentence warrants 3 exclamation points!)
I am ashamed that my inbox is overflowing. But you know what? I don't send a lot of emails! I'm a phone girl myself. I get copied on a gazillion emails. I get bombarded with way too much information and entirely too many silly questions, and this does not include the mindless jokes or spam.
How do I live like this, you say? Well, I've been pondering that very question tonight and I have come to the conclusion that I am in purely reactive mode when it comes to work. I think my thought process must be something like this:
IF YOU REALLY NEED ME, SCREAM!
Better yet, stop by my desk and just talk to me! Voila - 5 minutes and your needs are met, with no electronic traces left to haunt us! Perhaps you could pick me up a decaf tall skim latte while you're out for your two hour lunch!
In the meantime, I'm too busy working to read your stupid emails. Especially the ones where you just copy me because you want the whole world to know you're working today! Oh, and the ones where you just reply with totally unnecessary one word answers. Or the ones (my favorites) where you neglect to include a relevant subject line or any subject line at all!
Does anyone know if there's such a thing as Clean Sweep for the office professional? If so, please consider submitting my name - I will happily allow them to overhaul my inbox! (Believe it or not, my house does NOT have this problem!)
Thank you, fellow bloggers, for letting me vent! Your posts always have titles and more than one word and are full of purpose - such a comfort to know sane people do exist! I feel much better now that I've gotten that off my chest and now I'm off to take a nice relaxing bath and get ready to tackle . . .
anything but the inbox!!! (Not tomorrow anyways!)
(This post dedicated to my friend Katrina, who inspires me in more ways than one!)
Monday, April 16, 2007
9,063
Posts
8 comments:
Okay, I was way off! Did you know that would take 151 hours to go through if you spent no more than one minute on each one? More than 6 days straight? Aren't I encouraging? ;-)
Oh yikes, that is a ton! Sorry your reentry might have been a bit painful.
I read Katrina's post and so wish I could get mine whittled down like that...I was amazed that she would get hers empty! I'm just trying to get my personal one down to like 100 and I don't have a real job like you do with a work email.
I do sometimes work for an hour or 2 on it and then give up.
Hope the rest of your week is good!
I'd scream in big fat red letters, too, Dianne. Ridiculous. Too bad you can't just report each one as spam and never hear from them again.
Ha!
Okay, that last comment was my little attempt at a joke -- leaving you a one-word comment so you would know I'm actually reading blogs today. :) I'm thinking you need to get to be good friends with your delete key and just liberally trash all those copied emails and one-word responses. I know that's easier said than done sometimes, though...
And thanks for the dedication. If you'd like, I can come to work with you one day and delete all your emails while you entertain Logan. That way, you get the nice clean Inbox, but can honestly tell people that you didn't delete their emails -- they just disappeared.
9,063????!!!!
Holy mail, Batman! I can't even imagine.
I'd Katrina up on her offer and just let her delete away. I'd take Logan time over inbox time anyday!
Oh wow, you sound like me. I am the world's worst when it comes to cleaning out an inbox. My old computer has hundreds in the inbox and multiple folders with hundreds in each also. I am NOT going to accumulate a total count. You're braver than I. I got a new laptop a month ago, and already, it's out of control. I can't keep my inbox down. I try, I really do. But it just ain't gonna happen :)
Yeah, Katrina got me thinking (and deleting as well). I had a lot---thousands--they were old and most could have been deleted or should have been filed. I still have a ways to go.
I remember being copied on jillions of messages. . . .
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