do we care?

Had a very interesting discussion today with some professionals, working folk, about the emails they receive. When they open email and find anywhere from 50 to 100 emails a day they have to sort through them, because for business people time is money, and emails could mean a job or important contact. The Government Gal says same thing. She dreads opening email anymore to find not only messages from her boss and workers, but friends and family sending anything they happened to find cute, interesting, latest family news (SueSue had a boo boo), who's dating who, and the worst: what do you think of this? Her point was 1) it places a demand on her to read all the "junk" and 2) she feels rude if she doesn't respond to her friends and family. But here's the best comment of all: email, like talk, has become cheap.

What does that mean? This gal said before email people didn't send ten letters a day with every errant whim they could think of. No, because you would have to get paper, write your crazy thought (several times if you wanted to send it to each family member and friend), get stamps and then mail it. Her point is that we were more discriminating about what we wrote in letters and snail mail cards. Now, every time we chuckle or smile, we think the whole world cares. Clearly they don't!

Playing devil's advocate, I said, "I know a prolific emailer who says well then, just delete them. I'm not going to censor my behavior." I can't type her response in polite company, but essentially she says it's not that easy. To delete them, she still must read and sift through the tens or hundreds of emails received (biz and personal) to know what can be deleted. Her primary point: people sending all these links, jokes and pics are thoughtless and have no respect for other people's time. "I have my own life and priorities," she says. "Do email-aholics think I care about every whim that strikes them as interesting? Must read, my ass."

Driving home I thought about the many emails I send and receive. I don't send or forward jokes, but because I type fast, I can dash off an email that the guys said can take them quite awhile to read, and then formulate a response, especially when they have many other things to think about. It is rude of me and I'm going to slow down and think about what I send out from now on. I won't send my blog link. Those who want it know how to find it and read it. Those who want my tweets and errant thoughts, will get them that way. Perhaps all Persons of Leisure should give a bit more thought to our email impact on others.