Today’s Washington Postreports 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?