email jail

As a self-acknowledged Crazy List Maker, one of my favourite itches to scratch is to keep a very thorough and organized email filing system on my computer at work. I pride myself on my Folders. My first few weeks at a new job are invariably spent lovingly nurturing A System - a system that lets me pull up an email on any given topic with just a few assured clicks of the mouse. Though it's occurring to me as I write this that I could use the general Search function to the same effect, there is no glory in that. There is no challenge in typing, "Sport", and "Hosting", "Good god, HOW MANY TIMES do we have to go through all this sh!t AGAIN?!!", so that the email with all the answers pops up, to remind you of that funding formula that you still don't understand, but have to brief up on anyway. No. That email is in its proper Folder, waiting. Waiting for me to dig it out again, show it the glaringly florescent light of day (or early evening, as is too often the case these past few weeks).

It's why I got the twitches briefly, earlier, as I watched in the matter of seconds seven emails come in at once. Bang... Bang... Bang, bang, bang, bang.

BANG!

And I looked at the counter, and realized the ridiculousness of my days: over 300 emails. Unread. And most of them: un-Foldered.

I. am. losing. control.

Sure. Many, if not most, of these emails are the day's headlines. Notices from friends about social gatherings long since past. Diatribes by up and coming young whipper snappers about what reasonable accomodation really means in Quebec. Emails by bright young things years younger than me, some of whom will someday be my boss. And so I want to keep them, read them one day when I have a half hour to spare.

But - alarmingly - there are also too many emails left unopened that I know contain some important nugget of information relevant to one or more of the twenty-two tasks at hand. I'm skating. And I've fallen through the ice a couple times already. Today. I'm not too concerned about my ability to manage all this - yet. I am learning at an astonishing rate; exponentially. I've reminded myself that I'm generally a good employee. I ask questions. I admit error. And I move on. (Or try to, anyway.)

It's the lack of Folder organization that's going to kill me. The next time my boss Berries me frantically four times in 10 minutes without recieving a response, it won't be because I'm getting a coffee down the street. It'll be because I've reached 400, and my heart could no longer take it.