I am currently in the process of cleaning out the 3,843 e-mails in my work inbox right now. No, that is not a typo. Three THOUSAND eight HUNDRED forty three e-mails. And I’ve only worked here since December! However did the employees of the great 925 communicate before the invention of the Internet?!
Well, I guess they picked up the phone. (You should hear my voicemail, the tone of which almost screams “I do not have time to return your call in the next Century so do not even bother leaving a message here!”). Or maybe they just wrote memos and sent them via courier?
It is 11:11 a.m. Gotta make a wish. I am wishing that it wasn’t taking 45 minutes to clean out my inbox. I am looking at my pretty toes while I wait for this e-mail mess to clear, thinking how my new pink polish makes my toes look tan.
Down to 3,092 e-mails…
So, in keeping with the style of our day, here is a work e-mail to You (because all of our carrier pigeons are currently tied up with other deliveries).
To: My Dear Reader
CC: All the friends you forward this to (because good writing should always be shared)
BCC: Mom (I don’t want you to be self conscious knowing she’s reading this over your shoulder)
Subject: My Dream Job
I wish I was the person employed solely to name nail polish. I am currently wearing Dutch Tulips, which is rather a boring name considering OPI turns out such shades as “Cozu-melted in the Sun” and “Rock-apulco Red,” just to name a couple from their new Mexico collection.
Down to 2,415 e-mails…
How does one get the job of Official Nail Polish Namer? Does OPI post a link on their Web site, “Now Open: Official Nail Polish Namer position!”
No! Back up to 2,420 e-mails…
Okay, just did some actual work, then checked out OPI's official Web site. Discouraging…no such position named. There must be an unpaid intern locked in a closet somewhere in middle America, eyes glazed over from staring at color swatches on every available digit…
Management: The theme this Spring is Former Communist Countries. Go!
Unpaid Intern: Um, err, uh, well, let's see, um, “Czech It Out Cherry?!”
Management: Brilliant! Now write that on 1,000 slips of paper and get the pigeons ready!
Only 1,625 e-mails to go…
All this Spring cleaning is making me hungry. Time to break for lunch. “Lunch Break Grape!”
Official Nail Polish Namer, over and out.
1 comment:
Dear Pink on a Pinkie,
That truly is a lot of e-mail. Don't you ever worry that one of those thousands of e-mails may be important and that you'll really, really, really need it next Wednesday? I admire a bold deleter. So sure of yourself. So comfortable with the finality of the "Delete" key.
Me? I have what the medical community calls HDD, Hesitant Deletion Disorder. HDD sufferors can't delete for fear that they'll need this particular e-mail on some particular day for some particular reason. The fear is palpable. Paralyzing. Luckily, I consider myself an HDD survivor because I have found that HDD can be controlled with drugs and alcohol. I may now have a drug and alcohol problem but my e-mail boxes are clean as a whistle.
But you never really know what might be important. Take the Bible for instance. Or more specifically The Apocrypha, those writings that did not make it into the final edition. Somebody decided that the Books of John, Mark and Luke were more relevant than the Book of Doug. Or that all of those letters to folks like the Corinthians were more important than Larry's Letters to the Galoshes. Now I realize that Larry was not the best of the letter writers. For one thing, he started every letter with "How are you? I am fine". And it wasn't Doug's fault that he was usually on a coffee run when Jesus said those really cool quotes like "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone". The Book of Doug includes quotes like "That Herod really chaps my gerbils" and "Doug, that is one good cuppa Joe". In Larry's fourth Letter to the Galoshes, he asks "What's the deal? How come nobody's writing back?". On the surface that might not have a lot of spiritual importance, but a good priest could turn that into a heck of a homily on honoring thy father and thy mother or when you go to God in prayer sometimes it may seem like he's not writing back and he probably isn't because ..... well .... he's busy and some of his people took sick leave. After all, it is the cold and flu season. I think Doug and Larry, and all of the other contributors that didn't make it into the Bible, like Earl, Raoul and Bingo (who some people refer to as "the second string" apostles -- what? you don't think God plans ahead with a back-up player in case a starter goes down?).
But somebody decided to just delete Doug and Larry. Think about that the next time you hit the Delete key.
CR
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