Some reflections on email

I suppose that it must be getting on for twenty years since I first sent an email. In the mid-1990s, it was anticipated that email would become the cheapest, most effective and most efficient means of communication ever invented. Little did anyone imagine (save for those with great powers of foresight) the way in which it would come to dominate our lives. Given the amount of time that many of us (all of us?) spend dealing with emails I doubt very much whether we would still see it as being quite so efficient and it certainly isn't cheap in terms of staff time. Of course, I'm not denying the enormous benefits of email communication but it is something of a curse too. This week I've had some cause to be irked by email; not so much the content of messages as the way in which it is often used.

Earlier this year I did a little experiment with email. It was during a relatively "quiet" week just after the Christmas holidays. Last thing on the Friday afternoon, I went to my sent items and counted that I had sent some 94 emails that week. Now, admittedly, this week in January was not your average or typical week; it was very quiet because term had not yet started and some people were still on leave. I looked at those 94 emails and all but 13 were responses to other people's messages. So, I had only initiated 13 emails myself across the week. I also looked at the time I'd sent them and found that one quarter were sent outside the normal nine-to-five routine. I have not replicated this during more hectic weeks but I'm sure the ratio would be broadly similar. Have a go yourself sometime.

The fact that 81 emails were replies ties in with the thing that irked me this week. For it occurred to me earlier this week the extent to which our workload can be tipped on way or the other by the contents of our inbox. For example, I have been almost back to back with staff annual appraisals this week with maybe an hour or so each day with no appointments. That sounds fine; that was the time I could catch up on other "stuff". Well, no it wasn't because on a couple of the days I switched on the iPhone over breakfast to discover emails which necessitated fairly big amounts of work with, of course, no warning that they were coming and deadlines that were very tight. Interestingly, they had come in between 10.30pm and 6am.

Now, I am the first to admit that I am obsessive about email and have an "empty inbox" policy (there is a single email sitting in there at the moment and I am already getting a nervous twitch). And, this is, of course, making a rod for my own back; so too do smart phones which mean the email - either work or personal - pops up immediately wherever you happen to be. So yes, I am my own worst enemy.

Now, dear readers, at the risk of sounding like Disgruntled of Port Gordon, here are some of my real email irritants and I'm sure you will both recognise them and, indeed, empathise with them too.

1.The curse of CC- Person A has a question which Person B will know the answer to. Person A emails Person B and copies Person C in (either because they want to be seen to ask the question or because they are generally awkward). Person B replies to Person A and copies to Person C (just for good measure or because they want to be seen as knowing the answer or because they want Person C to confirm it is right). Person A thinks of another question or isn't convinced by the answer so emails back Person B (copied to person C). Person B replies again (still copying to Person C) and so on until such time as Person A replies to all with the words "Thank you" or both A and B decide the don't know either the question or the answer and they should have emailed C in the first place. And we all know these chains can go on and on and on....

2.Clear my inbox syndrome - this usually occurs after 4pm weekdays but in serious cases symptoms start at around 3pm, particularly on a Friday. Sufferers of this condition fire off a barrage of emails to others in order to ensure that their desk is clear (or, rather, inbox is empty) before they head off for the evening or weekend. Contrary to popular misconceptions about academics heading off early on a Friday, I have noted a marked spike in email sending in the second half of Friday afternoons. Additionally, these clear-my-inbox messages often result, when replied to, in an out of office message.

3.Compulsive forwarding - Why do some people who are on the same distribution list as everyone else feel the need to forward on messages to others? Often these are forwarded with no message other than "Sent from my iPhone/iPad".

4."I've sent you an email..." - Person Y sends you an email then either meets you in the corridor or, worse still, appears at your desk to tell you that they've sent you an email.

5."It's my priority so it WILL be yours too"- this sort of relates to what I mentioned earlier about the way in which your day, no matter how carefully planned, can suddenly be scuppered by the arrival of messages which take you away from what you had planned to do. This is the sender almost dictating the workload of the recipient and often, I think, too little thought is given by the sender about the things the recipient might be involved in and where, on their scale of priorities, the thing that is "so urgent" lies. I had a good example of this when I was off on holiday (and, yes, more fool me for looking at the message); the umpteenth draft of a report came into my inbox at lunchtime on the first Monday of my holidays and the email accompanying it contained the fatal words "....and I need this by the end of the day so that it can be sent first thing tomorrow morning....."). Yes, indeed, thank you so much.

6.Size is not everything- Recently I had an email with fourteen attachments for a meeting (not a CILIPS one I hasten to add). A mixture of Word files and Excel files. One nice PDF (or, at a push, two) would have been much nicer. I also had another lovely attachment of 27MB. That buggered up the email nicely. How they managed to send it I have no idea.

So, there you have it. A real whinge about email. I'm sure some of my moans will be shared by many of you. Meanwhile, if you do have any comments, queries, questions or suggestions please do drop me an email at p.reid@rgu.ac.uk