E-Mails - Clogging the System
 

I was away for a couple of days last week and when I came back there were no less than 80 e-mails waiting for me. 20 were large documents that required reading and some action, all within 72 hours. Some were to notify short notice meetings and others were questions. All in all it seems that the e-mail system has quadrupled the workload and clogged the system with too much niff naff and trivea. The problem with this is that it wastes time, important issues are lost in the background noise and any d*ckhead with half an idea can tie up the whole world for hours.

Anyone else getting fed up with this?:{

Give him a jingle and leave a voice mail message...after you get through the robot....and 97 choices of options...and then listen to his message about being too frigging bothered to pick up the phone.

Techology is great isn't it?

I've toyed with the idea of removing Outlook from every workstation and making everyone write signals again. The small amount of extra effort might deter people from writing craploads of emails and actually doing some work. And it would give the Commcen something to do.

Wyler

Empty your inbox without checking after every absence from work.

If it's important- they'll phone or email again.

If it's not..........

Works for me.

CG

Yep, done that and one of the ones who phoned again was the CO. Very short conversation.:\

email went down in November. So far one phone call at deadline +90 minutes - sorted. One email passed on by 3rd party who thought I might be interested - only 3 weeks late.

Other than that - nil, nix and not missed.

Amusing in that not much has changed. During the late sixties I had as a secodary duty the position of sqn adj. As a F.O. at the time and determined to impress the boss, then the youngest Sqn Ldr in the air force, I assiduously filed and answered all incoming correspondence. Boss told me that it was a total waste of time, to take out what looked important and bin the rest, and if it was important they would write back. Wonderful advice...worked perfectly and we had the slimmest filing system on the station.

NC43

I remember that when the bunker goes down (flooding, standby generator tests, plague, pestilence etc) at STC everyone migrates to Cafe 1 and gets plenty of work done. And monkeys might fly out my :mad:.

View them in preview pane. Down arrow at 0.5Hz. Scan read. If it's b0110x hit delete, if it's a one line joke hit delete after chuckle, if it's an internet story hit delete, if it's got your name at the top; flag for attention, if it's a bo11ocking flag for attention, if the sender has requested a read receipt click NO, if it's from that MoD secretary you've been pestering, read between the lines then reply inappropriately, if it's a game have a quick blast.
Whole process take about 6 minutes. Snagless.

Your Mailbox is full and has been closed

Your Mailbox is full and has been closed!

Your Mailbox is full and has been closed,

Your Mailbox is full and has been closed.

Your Mailbox is full and has been closed
(Get the picture????)

Ultimate triv filter.
 

At the secret Hampshire airbase, we get repeated reminders that your inbox is nearly full until it actually is full and you can't do anything. Couple that with going away for a week and coming back to '287 unread messages' and it's a mighty pain in the hoop.

CG has it right. Ctrl+A, Del. Wipe the lot of it in a oner. If it has sat in your inbox for that long and the world is still turning, it's unimportant. If it is important, they'll get back to you. No more wading through the agenda for the RAF tiddlywinks team's AGM, volunteers wanted for stn drains secondary duty, standby power check will happen last week, SWO will use stop and search powers to measure sideburns, has anyone seen my left silver shadow etc etc.

It would be nice if they did just that. Recently, I arrived back from 2 successive month-long dets to find 9532 unread e-mails in my inbox.

I had about 3 important ones, 10 informative ones, and about 9500 saying " Your inbox is full, you must delete some stuff."
It's programmed to be sent once every 15 minutes!!??!!?? Damn it, who the heck came up with that brainwave.
So in the process of trying to delete all this rubbish, I received a further 4 messages.....:mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: !! Just stop sending me those messages, and there'd be a whole lot less of a problem. More :mad:

This is where mine has gone;
http://www.csplus.com/images/trash.jpg
I misunderstood the trash bin concept. It allows me to actually do my job and go bloody flying now. The world is still rotating as far as I am aware.


Another thing this 'revolution' is responsible for is lazy barstewards not bothering to address to specific people. Instead of taking a bit of time to send to those who it is relevant to, they just CC it to the fecking world. As has been said, I am not interested in the AGM of the Womble Touchers Society meeting at 18:00 in the Scout hut (bring own refreshments) or the fact that some gipping civvy bird from admin has had a pair of equally gipping sprogs and 'any flowers or cards should be sent to Twycross Zoo'. This is an invasion of my privacy and if I wanted to be bombarded with 1000Mbs of utter crap, I would sign up for every chad internet site going. Work email has bypassed the age old system of the chain of command. every tit can 'contact' me now. Above and below.

Top tip; When actually at work, set your email to 'out of office reply'. When actually out of the office revert back to normal flow. As has been said, if its important, 'they' will bother their arses to contact you in the old fashioned way.

TOPTIP.....

In the message box, go to "create rule for message"

Create a rule which states... "where the to line contains people".... insert YOUR e-mail address...

then go to the... "delete it" box. Then, every e-mail that comes in gets thrust straight into the deleted folder...

Like the good man said, if its that important , they will contact you again.

...or set an out-of-office reply that reads:
"Due to a network error your message has not been delivered. Please re-submit at a later date"

Then play Spot-the-Dullard :ok:

southside's tip is one way. Depending on your mail system, another is to set a rule that if the sender isn't in your "Frequent Contacts" list, it goes in the trash. Though you still get loads of mail, its only from people you customarily reply to - like The Big Boss.

The ultimate method of course, is to proxy your secretary to your e-mail while you're away. I know that not everyone has the luxury of a secretary, but don't you have 'deputies' in the mob any more?