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Good marketing for them. I get about 100 emails a week at my work address. 80 of those are internal, and about 30 of those internal messages are 'all staff'. I

Good marketing for them. I get about 100 emails a week at my work address. 80 of those are internal, and about 30 of those internal messages are 'all staff'. I just set a filter to dump those into a folder and empty it now and again. The external emails are usually from students asking questions or warning of absence &c. I keep those long enough to log the reason and to reply. The 50 or so 'real' internal messages seldom go to three messages. If I did not reply to those by email, I'd have to reply on paper memo forms. Teaching is basically face2face. The admin goes on email.

koralatov 14y ago
I wish I just got about 100 emails a week; I'm about twice that on average. Some of that is unavoidable -- I deal with our US office a lot, so email is often easier because it's asynchronous. What really upsets me is when people sitting in the same open-plan as me will email things to me rather than handing them to me, or turning and saying, ``Could you please take a look at this?'' Where I work now, and a couple places I've worked in the past, email have become the go-to `solution' to the `problem' of covering your arse. Almost nobody will do anything now without first getting an email instructing them to do so -- even if it's already been discussed at length. They `need' it so they have a paper-trail in case something goes belly-up. These problems are more cultural than technological, but email has really enabled them to flourish in a way that paper memos didn't.
- keithpeter 14y ago
  "They `need' it so they have a paper-trail in case something goes belly-up." We had that before email. It used to be handwritten memos on three part carbonised sets, original and yellow copy were sent and the blue one kept, the other person wrote their reply underneath and then kept the yellow one. I wish I had kept a few of those forms - the Internet seems not to know them... What I'm saying is that it is all down to the organisational culture. Any technology will be used in a way that conforms to the culture!

koralatov 14y ago

I wish I just got about 100 emails a week; I'm about twice that on average. Some of that is unavoidable -- I deal with our US office a lot, so email is often easier because it's asynchronous. What really upsets me is when people sitting in the same open-plan as me will email things to me rather than handing them to me, or turning and saying, ``Could you please take a look at this?'' Where I work now, and a couple places I've worked in the past, email have become the go-to `solution' to the `problem' of covering your arse. Almost nobody will do anything now without first getting an email instructing them to do so -- even if it's already been discussed at length. They `need' it so they have a paper-trail in case something goes belly-up. These problems are more cultural than technological, but email has really enabled them to flourish in a way that paper memos didn't.

keithpeter 14y ago
"They `need' it so they have a paper-trail in case something goes belly-up." We had that before email. It used to be handwritten memos on three part carbonised sets, original and yellow copy were sent and the blue one kept, the other person wrote their reply underneath and then kept the yellow one. I wish I had kept a few of those forms - the Internet seems not to know them... What I'm saying is that it is all down to the organisational culture. Any technology will be used in a way that conforms to the culture!