While I still have my ranty trousers on I might as well moan about emails, too, and expand a little on my comment to Kate from the last post.
Stupid emails are the bane of my working life …
(not personal emails; those are nice, although I'd much prefer handwritten letters).
F'rinstance: After yesterday's meeting (a £15million contract that promises to overrun in an amusingly litigious way), I got home to type up the minutes only to find twelve "URGENT" emails on points raised at the meeting, all requiring instant answers on subjects ranging from valid points of contract law to fuckwit imbecility.
In "the good old days" before emails, contract law gave me seven working days to provide a written reply to any points raised.
Legally I still have those seven days but the pressure is such that- de facto - emails that are not replied to instantly tend to invite claims for delays and damages.
There is no such thing as an in tray anymore (well there is, but mine just has a couple of camera lenses and an old firewire cable in it); just the constantly nagging inbox.
This morning I am trying to work.
To be productive.
But before I can start I have fifteen more emails - including nine replying to my replies from yesterday - all flagged as "URGENT" to wade through.
Plus eight phone messages (so far).
It has got to the stage where I am unable to do my job before ten in the morning and I'm working twelve hour days at home and at weekends just to catch up.
Letters were nice.
Getting the post around coffee time and having a couple of days to reply meant that the good old days were indeed good. Far less stressful and litigious and far more productive.
And the buildings I designed got built just as quickly but with far less hassle than they do today.
Construction contract law is not evolving at the same rate as modern instant communication with the result that I spend far less time being productive and far more time arguing niggling points of law with fuckwits than is consistent with my remaining sane.
What would be nice for starters is for Apple and Microsoft to come up with a little doohickey that senses when a total imbecile is about to label their worthless, time-wasting drivel as "URGENT" and administers a sharp and amusing electric shock.
Or perhaps I should just give up and go live in a hole.
Please can we start writing letters again?
I have lovely handwriting and I don't get to show it off any more.
Sometimes I feel like I was born in the wrong stupid century.
20 comments:
Email me and i'll send you an address. You can write long ranty letters about fuckwit emailers and send them snail mail.
I love good penmanship.
I'd love to receive a handwritten note from you :D Telling me how wonderful and charming I am hahahaha.
And I agree with the electric shock! But here's another pet peeve. At the office, obviously we have an Office Admin, old as Adam and Eve, and she forwards email to everyone.
One time I got in trouble for not being prepared to attend a high profile meeting - because I didn't receive the freaking email!
She says, "I sent it to you!" I was filled with the desire to give her a bit of a lecture about email and technology in general, but I didn't. It would have been hopeless.
She assumes that when she emails something, the person actually gets it!
I can go on and on about that incident because I experienced so much aggro that time. I find myself fuming again just typing about it!
joy
a Pinay in England
Your Love Coach
Kate and Joy: you are both wonderful and charming.
And don't get me started on "admin assistants" … I do all my own mail, post, filing, minutes, everything my secretary did in the "good old days". My admin assistant sits in the kitchen gossiping or shops online. I genuinely have no idea of her function.
She's a "NUNO" … Niether use nor ornament.
I'm going to start buying people fountain pens and nice handmade notepaper for Christmas from now on.
Your buying people stationary for christmas?
I PROMISE I'll be good all year.
May I have a fountain pen with blue ink please? :D I don't like black. I don't mind though if you're buying me a Mont Blanc :D Oooh, and to go with the pen, some really nice Basildon paper and wax seals and sealing wax please?
Can I just say what a culture shock it was when I first started working here? I felt invaded when the Office Admin opened my mail! I still find it a shock to the system 4 years hence. I CAN open my own mail, thank you very much.
joy
a Pinay in England
Your Love Coach
Kate: I certainly hope you WON'T!
Joy: Admin have to justify their existence somehow, and if that means opening your mail (even the stuff marked "Personal"), then that's just what they'll do.
Well, as you know, i'm reading Pepys Diaries at the moment - linked at my blog if anyone wants to revert to those days in 17th c. - i was only remarking today how very different things were. An obvious statement you might say, but it sinks in to me that EVERY time Pepys needed communication, it was a physical requirement. A letter to be written and posted by hand. A discussion; go round there. A social visit; go round there. Unexpected visitors would be waiting at his home on his return. Okay not so great on occasions, but there was of course no other way of letting people know.
I love letter writing too and enjoy my own handwriting, in a big-headed way just like you Dive. As a child, my letters would wing around the country to relatives and friends; i've always done it. Hardly ever, now. Shame. Bring back the pen!!! Er.. in conjunction with this convenient box of lights though, i suggest. We could write letters to each other on occasion couldn't we. Dust off my Parker pen... yay.
URGENT. I've just handwritten a letter to a friend. Relax.
Ooh. Ooh. I've just read the comments. Stationery for Christmas is a FAB idea. Maybe it'll catch on... lol. I admit to a bit of a stationery adoration. The paper,, the colours... the pens... the cards....I head for that department at Selfridges first. Even before perfume!
Hoorah for Pepys.
You can't beat face to face communication, Lynn. Chatting over coffee beats the crap out of a phone call, let alone an email or a stpd txt mssge.
And I'm so with you on stationery departments, though you have to look a lot harder these days to find good paper (I use really thick hand-laid stuff made in Venice but then I'm just Mister Snobby … hee hee).
You were born in just the right century.
It looks like we all want handwritten letters from you, Dive, although I should warn you my handwriting is chicken scratch.
I'd prefer it if you all popped in for coffee.
I remember the lovely time we had when you came to London, Robyn.
Tell you what … Hop on a plane and I'll put the kettle on.
One of these days,
I'm gonna sit down
and write a long letter
To all the good friends I've known
And I'm gonna try
And thank them all
for the good times together.
Though so apart we've grown.
And I'm gonna thank,
That old country fiddler
And all those rough boys
Who play that rock 'n' roll
I never tried to burn any bridges
Though I know I let some
good things go.
From down in L.A.
All the way to Nashville,
From New York City
To my Canadian prairie home
My friends are scattered
Like leaves from an old maple.
Some are weak, some are strong.
One of these days,
one of these days,
one of these days,
And it won't be long,
it won't be long.
Ah, Prudence.
Hoorah for Old Neil. What a lovely song.
And thanks to your impeccable taste I checked out the new Shelby Lynne and have now ordered it from the Amazonians.
I'll put it in a little playlist with Dusty In Memphis and hit "shuffle". What a great way to feel great.
T: Dumbasses indeedy. My new policy starting Monday morning will be to leave the "urgent" emails until after lunch.
I get irritated with answering machine orders. I have to call my child's school to tell them that she won't be coming in as she is ill today. At the end of the beep I am to leave my message. Then it asks me if I want to replay my message to check it's accuracy. If I don't, I press 8. Since I don't need to, I press 8. Then I am asked if I want "normal delivery" or "urgent delivery."
Well, let's see. I think normal is okay. But, I bet they get a lot of urgent deliveries.
Holy christ....
And, I, too, adore fountain pens and lovely parchment to write on. I am told that I write like a ten year old, though...lots of loops. And when my handwriting was analyzed, it came out that I was "sensitive and romantic." Bing had a hoot over that.....
Email is scary because of it's instant nature. I've been known to fire off a few pissed off words, hit send and seconds later think Oh fuck.
What cracks me up: I used to sit down with Word in the Uni computer labs to type application letters, and I would be through the addresses, date, Dear Sir/Madam stuff and only then would that stupid little animated paper clip thing pop up and tell me
"It appears you are writing a letter. Would you like assistance?"
Fuck off! That thing is like a blister - shows up after the work is done. Round of applause, Word Paperclip, you guessed it right, and I got this far without you.
what kate said, sugar...email me and i'll send you an address..send me yours and i'll send a great cd that was recorded at our now closed jazz club! along with a handwritten letter (written with my favorite fountain pen, blue ink on cream colored stationery)
Hi Dive -
I blame it all on FedEx and faxes. They revolutionized business communication and not necessarily in a good way.
As I sit here blogging and watching a Netflix dvd, can I possibly get away with calling myself a semi-Luddite?
I found you on Maria's Cupcake blog and have been lurking for a while. I enjoy your blog and linked to you today.
- Lulu
I have to agree with you, Dive. Emails has become non-personal anymore, no more dear or dearest or yours loving, yours faithfully or your sincerely nor any signature. You get: "This is a computer generated letter, no signature required." The first thing I do when I wake up is to switch on the puter and check my emails and sometimes I get so many emails with attachments (FW: FW: FW: FW:), I just deleted all this without opening, do not want to invite worms or virus...hahaha. Have a nice weekend. :)
Maria: Sensitive and romantic? Hee hee hee.
Actually, you ARE sensitive and romantic but it's still funny.
Vic: Ew! Microsoft! I remember using that once in an office. You could change the paperclip for other annoying characters.
Or you could just use a proper programme instead of a Microsoft one, which is what I always do.
The world would have been so much simpler and nicer if someone had the foresight to drown Bill Gates at birth.
Savannah: They closed your jazz club? Philistines!
Put the CD on your blog like Prudence has done (click her link in her comment above) and we can ALL hear it!
Lulu: Welcome!
Thank you for lurking; I like being lurked at.
I also love your haiku!
And damn! You look a lot better than I do at … ahem … "our age".
Though I don't think your new hair would suit me quite as well.
Alice: ARGH! Computer generated emails truly suck!
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