I have wanted to blog about this for a long time but I just don’t know how to put it. Also, if I spent time doing this during work everyone would be wondering why I am not doing productive work. So I put this up on my blog, after duty. You know, after some people got fired from their jobs for blogging about work, you sort of get a little concerned for whatever you do in your private life, even when grumbling about your work is still part of your private life to a certain extent.

Anyway, it’s been a long time I have been suffering from email fatigue (and overload) and I dread opening my mailbox these days. Thanks to those who think they are doing everybody a good deed in keeping everyone informed (or reminded) with emails, emails from colleagues are now viewed as:

1. a chore;
2. a source of multi-redundant, repeated, irrelevant information (aka spam);
3. an avenue of passing the buck; and
4. an absolute annnoyance.

Email has therefore ceased to be an instrument of timely, and relevant information thanks to those exceedingly (un)helpful, and email discipline and network-etiquette lacking individuals. In fact, it has become an annoying part of corporate culture. Is it a wonder why more people are now using IM – instant messengers – to pass information in a timely manner? Not to mention that because IM suffers from the very lack of tracking and the ability to be properly documented, it really makes everyone happier because no one can dig out an ancient email you wrote at the fit of anger to crucify you?

The following are some fine examples or specimens of ‘Email Wonders’ experienced either personally or by colleagues regularly. I am quite sure everyone receive emails which are deemed necessary for your knowledge and information. They usually left you scratching your head as to what implications they have to your work. For e.g. what impact is there to Singapore if there’s a server outage in Europe? No further information is given on what Intranet functionality or application is affected. Of course, the poor recipient is expected to discover how and why the information is relevant to him at all!

It is even worse when the emails contains several level of exchanges (sometimes ongoing over a long period) and suddenly forwarded to another person without even the courtesy of a short summary from the forwarder. It doesn’t even contain an FYI or FYA. So the poor guy who received it will then need to spend time reading and figuring out what was going on, only to either discover that it is a piece of information that either has no implication for him entirely, or that he is now required to contact those in the earlier exchange for clarification. What is even more wonderful, is for e.g.

• a mass mail sent from Alex, containing a request to Ben to take certain necessary action;
• a mass mail sent from Charlie, which contains queries on certain matters he made to Daniel; and
• Edwin re-broadcasting an email to a everyone in the department, without even realising that there’s a similar email from Frank lying in his mailbox already. (This really takes the cake!)

And all these mail are just sent to a whole lot of people simply because it is easy to just hit ‘Reply All’ and sent the mails on their merry way. Who cares about the rest of the people on the mailing list anyway?! To these ‘Email Wonders’, it really doesn’t matter that it is exceedingly frustrating and annoying for someone to discover that an email is irrelevant to him or a repeat of information he already has! After all, what is so difficult to just delete these well intentioned ‘FYI’ (not FYA) mails? It doesn’t hurt to spend a few seconds figuring out if it is even relevant at all, right? Is it a wonder why, FYI has now taken on a new meaning – For Your Ignoring or For You (to) Ignore?

Apart from the above ‘Email Wonders’, email is also a convenient way for other sub-section colleagues to pass the buck. For e.g. Gerard sent Helen a mail asking her to perform a task which he could have done himself. A number of people are copied on that mail, so that they are now made aware that the ball is in Helen’s ‘care’, and that this matter is really Helen’s responsibility and not in Gerard’s job description. It doesn’t matter if poor Helen could have knocked off for the day, or she could be on leave. Had Gerard perform the task, the matter would been already resolved there and then, instead of being left dangling, to the chagrin of whoever in need of getting the matter resolved.

Wondeful, isn’t it? If you are one of the f#ck-witted ‘Email Wonders’ described above, to hell with you, alright? Thanks for making the workplace hell when everyone is just trying to make an honest living.

Thanks, but no thanks!