Today’s Washington Post reports that both private and public employers increasingly are telling staff to not spend their evenings and weekends answering emails. Some are trying to avoid overtime claims from non-exempt employees, others burnout. One of the villains here is that compulsion to cc: ten other people on every email–and then on the replies.

If Internet providers could figure out a way to charge a penny per recipient after the first fifteen, we might all be better off. If you are like me, you get way too many mass emails a day from people whose idea of a good time is forwarding political half-truths and other shocking (i.e., not fact-checked first at Snopes.com) news. Add spam to that burden.

Email is a marvelous productivity tool and can reduce legal expenses as compared to phone time. But when misused, it’s another curse of modern life.

Now, why not email this post to a 1,000 of your closet friends?