Email Priorities 


OK, when did this start and how can we stop it? NEARLY EVERY FREAKING EMAIL I GET now has the little "high priority" thing set. Doesn't matter if they're asking about the weather or if it's a pardon from governor for that prisoner being executed. Almost all mail is being sent with this flag on. I've turned off the icons in my client that highlight the apparently ultra-urgent "LOL, YOULL LOVE THIS JOKE, LOL :-)" I get from "friends" or cow-orkers.

Seriously, did some new Outlook version get deployed which allows this to be defaulted to High for all mail? And who the hell are these jerks kidding that they think everything they send needs immediate attention? If you need immediate action, pick up the damn phone. Otherwise, it's probably going to sit in my inbox for a while until I get enough cycles to deal with it.

Look, emails get delayed, lost, folded, spindled, and occasionally mutilated. It's not a 100% reliable form of communication. If it really is important, email should only be a backup for a phone call. So DROP THE OVERUSE OF HIGH PRIORITY MAIL. It sucks, and if you continue to abuse it, you'll suck too. It's already been rendered useless for me, so just DROP IT. 

 

Posted: Thu - November 17, 2005 at 12:45 PM          

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