Email Terrorists

I am currently in a part of the world which is only just coming to terms with the digital age and it’s still only the enterprising few who understand the fringe benefits of offering free wifi and Internet access at their premise. This means that to post this drivel I have to make a journey away from my sunny oasis into the nearest town and ultimately a bar with an accommodating host.

Now, I as my colleagues will happily or maybe unhappily testify am not a slave to my mobile or email and just because my phone may be ringing doesn’t mean I am honour bound to halt my meeting or stop mid activity to silence its attention demanding trill and speak to the voice on the other end. However, the knowledge that even the receiving of emails or access to anything Internet based is extremely limited here is sheer bliss right now. Why? Well recently I’ve been the victim of a scenario know as ‘passing the monkey’. A quite frankly lazy business practice.

Passing the monkey is a phrase used to describe the passing of a problem to another party. I would just like to state for the record… and you know who you are… just because you’ve emailed me your problem doesn’t mean that it’s now my problem and my problem alone.
These email terrorists hide behind their outlook button and the belief that once they hit send they have absolved themselves of any responsibility. And while we are on the subject why send an email if you’re sat no more than a stiff dig in the ribs away? Perhaps that’s it. Perhaps the e-terrorist knows just what the response would be if the request was posed face to face.

The Internet and email are fabulous tools but they are open to abuse and it’s not only the hiding by the lazy but also people’s expectation. How many times have you heard comments like, ‘when can I have it? I emailed it to you earlier’. The assumption being that you dropped everything and started work on their request the moment it hit the inbox. In an age of instant gratification and high speed communication the short form nature of email messages and the inability to understand the intonation of a mail leads to misunderstanding and frustration. So please please please get off your arse and ask face to face. You’ll get a much better response that way. I don’t bite… much.