Worker Is Sinking Into Pile of E-Mail
A weekly column about humans as they interact with things that beep, buzz, ring and download.
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Dear Button Pusher: I get about 50 e-mails a day at work. A sprinkling of personal messages, but the vast majority are business-related. I try to answer them all, but it’s impossible. Should I feel guilty about not returning everyone’s e-mails?
--BURIED IN E-MAIL
Dear Buried: My belief is that everyone should feel guilty about everything all the time. It’s just a better way to live.
However, if we focus upon your immediate dilemma, shared by thousands of pod-workers across the land, I’d like to expiate your guilt. Do what you can, but you’ve got work to do and a life to lead.
Your EPD (e-mails per day) isn’t too bad actually. I’ve heard of much worse. Some poor Dilberts out there have an EPD of 200 or more! It’s enough to send you speeding onto the information superhighway with a high-powered weapon.
You should generally follow the policy you have with other communications. Do you respond to every fax? Do you respond to every snail-mail letter you receive? Probably not, and the same should go for e-mails. Use your own judgment to prioritize. I’d be remiss, however, if I didn’t mention there was another prominent school of thought (though not quite as prominent or prestigious as my school). Some business protocol experts say you should feel guilty. Very guilty.
They say good manners and good business sense dictate you return each and every e-mail. And within three days!
Fact of the Week: The average worker receives 190 messages a day, according to a study conducted last year by office equipment manufacturer Pitney Bowes Inc. The figure includes e-mails, faxes, conventional and cellular telephone calls, voicemail and letters.
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Dear Button Pusher: My husband and I are happily married. We agree on all the big issues--religion, kids, politics, etc. But there’s one topic on which we can’t agree: control of the remote control. He always hogs it. At least that’s what I think. But he thinks I always hog it.
When he has the remote, he channel surfs like crazy. I literally get dizzy trying to keep track of the screen. We have a second set, so when there’s really something on that one of us doesn’t want to miss, we can watch it. But as a rule, we like to watch TV together, except for this remote control control issue. Any suggestions?
--REMOTE MADNESS
Dear Remote: Your problem is as old as King Solomon. As such, it deserves a solution worthy of the wise old king. He’d probably call forth his mightiest warrior and have him draw his sword over the remote. The warrior would carefully line up the blade over the exact middle of the device. Then, Solomon would give the order and the remote would be smashed into a million bits.
OK, let’s try another king--the Burger King. Let’s try a “have it your way” approach to the remote. On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, you get the remote. On Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, he gets the remote. And on Sundays, for nostalgia’s sake, you can fight over the remote.
For comments and questions upon the human-machine relationship, please e-mail to martin.miller@latimes.com or write to Button Pusher, Los Angeles Times, Times Mirror Square, Los Angeles, CA 90053, or fax to (213) 237-4888. Please include your name and city residence with all correspondences.
