The Tangent Side - Company Email

lol - that's funny, but also bears a horrible truth about the internet age. One of my sisters took early retirement, and on of the reasons was all the electronic paperwork; head honcho send an email to all his subordinates. In turn, they pass it on etc etc. The result is a meaningles pile of email crap on your desk first thing in the morning. Doesn't even matter if a reply is needed, it has to be read just to check if that is the case.

To make a theoetical example; The Prime Minister wants people to cut down on expences claims for taxis, so he sends a missive to the cabinet office.....they in turn send it to all their juniors.....several million emails latter, a nurse in <wherever> who possibly (in my fantasy ) rides a bike to work gets the same. That's several million people wasting, say, 10 seconds to read an email that nobody will pay any attention to (even if it's relevent). I'm not going to do the math - it's too easy to see the end result. Atop that factor is important messages that are delayed in being read or acted upon because of the heap of garbage. Yeehaw for the internet. The butterfly effect with electronic wings.

Whilst this is a fun blog, I'd suggest a case for arguing that emails and texting are too cheap. A postage stamp here costs something like 60p (shamefully I don't even know the cost offhand). That cost makes one consider and prioritize the cost of communication. I can filter email, but a financial filter might be more effective. Luddites of the world unite - you have nothing to lose but your clogs !

For information, these are the current postage rates from within the UK. As with most things, size is important!

What I do like what the United States Postal Service does, that started about 20 years ago, was to creat Forever Stamps.

what this does, once you have forever stamps, when you bought it, it’s still good, no mater how many postal price increase happens.

At the few places I have worked for that used a company email system I did my best from day one to avoid ever having to look at it or use it.

Amazingly I could go for 2 - 3 months between looking at my email and never once did I ever miss anything that was relevant or important to me or what work I did.

Delete all those so you can get to the CR4!

"Did you get my e-mail?"

How farcical. The individual sent an e-mail and followed it up verbally. Why not do the verbal thing in the first place and save all the delays?

According to this, e-mail is the no.1 top time-waster.

Yup. E-mail is low-priority communication.

People hide behind email. I remember a job in a previous life...you backed up the phone call with an email. Now you back up the email with a phone call. And if you want to shift the blame to someone else, don't call.

And here's a neat concept...go talk to the person.

I don't disagree with any of the above replies, however, email does have a place.

Email provides a way to document communication (for my own sanity as well as to back up agreements that are later denied being agreed upon).

Working on a project about 10 years ago, the project engineer would set up the schedule for the following week on Thurs or Friday. As the device being built was one of the main constraining resources (lots of engineers all needing to use it, but only one device to share), we had to work in shifts. Since my tasked required me to work alone while others could share the device, I tended to get stuck working 3rd shift.

After a few months, I made requests to have a week or two on 1st or 2nd shift. My daughter was only 18 months old and being away at night was tough for my wife. Initially, I would just ask, face to face. I wouldn't be told no, but told I'll see what I can do, or even yes a few times. Then the next week, I'm on 3rd shift again. When I asked about it, the project engineer would play dumb. This went on for few weeks and I started wonder if I was just imagining making the request. I finally formally made the request via email. The reply was a phone call, telling me "sure". If I had not come in the plant to pick something up over the weekend, I would not have seen my name on the schedule for 3rd shift Sunday night/Monday morning. I eventually caught on that this is how the Project Engineer operated. She avoided email or any written/documented communications so she could have deniability or at least could use it to cloud the issues.

grrrrrrr Yes, I'm still pissed. Not at working 3rd shift, but at the frustration in dealing with someone who exists in the world of ambiguity.

E mail A godsend for those who were Peter Principle Promoted.

I remember one of my first jobs I had as a service tech at a pasta plant.

Shortly after having started working there I was told to clean up and organize oneof t our work/storage rooms.

I found this one odd looking key behind a work table and it turned out to be one of two keys that fit the company time clock! To my understanding the only other key was held by the one of the upper office people.

Anyway after finding that key I got hold of the manual for the time clock and figured out how to bump the stamping time up or down at will to whatever time I wanted to then set it back all within maybe 30 seconds.

After that I was never late no matter when I showed up and it was documented too!

I always wondered why my weasely two faced manager never came up with that to cover his butt but then from experience I rather doubt he had the brains to ever figure out the time clock.