Hmmm, did the Big Man upstairs take pity on me and gift me with an interval of silence?
It is a rare occurrence and always makes me think there is something amiss. Before you jump to conclusions with any number of frightening possibilities, let me spare you the effort. What I am referring to is a day in my work life where I receive very few e-mail messages.
On a normal work day, they come in at the rate of one every few minutes. On a particularly busy day, they fill up my inbox at a bewildering pace that defies quantification. I sometimes worry that my laptop might implode from the task of receiving all of them.
For interest’s sake I did a quick Google search for “How many e-mails are sent per day?”. I do not know how they manage to make the calculation or how anyone has the time to do it. But the answer is: 306.4 billion per day in 2020, 293.6 billion per day in 2019, 281.1 billion per day in 2018 and 269.0 billion per day in 2017. Yes, you read it correct. We are talking billions.
There are work days when it seems I do little else than read and respond to e-mails. Keeping up with them is a never-ending task and the source of no small amount of stress.
Thankfully, I figured out how to turn off the Ping! that signals an e-mail arriving. Frankly, it was either that or smash my laptop with a hammer. As satisfying as that might be, I would get into trouble with my employer for destruction of company property.
Back to the original topic of e-mail free days. My brain responds to the oddity with concern. Something is wrong. This cannot be. It then questions me to see what I did wrong.
Did your internet connection drop? Nope, I checked that. All good on that front.
Is there a problem with Outlook? Let me test if by sending an e-mail to myself. It came through fine. Outlook is functioning.
Did you forget about an All-Staff Meeting? You know you did that once before. I experience a moment of panic, frantically check my calendar and breathe a sigh of relief when that possibility is eliminated.
My brain now jumps to more far-reaching possibilities.
Are you about to be fired and everybody knows about it but you? No, I have not dropped the ball on any major projects so that is not likely.
Did something catastrophic happen in the world and you are the last one to know? A massive solar flare that fried 90% of the population. Aliens landed and kidnapped everyone but you. An end of the world news report was broadcast and you missed it.
This worrisome possibility compels me to get up and look fearfully out the window. There is nothing out of the ordinary in my field of view. Life is still unfolding like it should. There is no apocalypse underway.
I am left to give thanks for the small blessing of a blissful day when no one needs anything from me or needs to tell my anything. The virtual silence is deafening and I could not be happier about it.
Then, alas, the e-mail barrage, that is the bane of modern, white collar work, erupts again. I expel a deep groan of frustration and surrender myself once again to the insatiable e-mail beast – taking comfort in the fact that I have spared myself the ubiquitous Ping!
~ Now Available Online from Amazon, Chapters Indigo or Barnes & Noble: Hunting Muskie, Rites of Passage – Stories by Michael Robert Dyet
~ Michael Robert Dyet is also the author of Until the Deep Water Stills – An Internet-enhanced Novel which was a double winner in the Reader Views Literary Awards 2009. Visit Michael’s website at www.mdyetmetaphor.com or the novel online companion at www.mdyetmetaphor.com/blog.
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Tags: e-mail · metaphor · Michael Robert Dyet · Microsoft OutlookNo Comments