To E-mail Or Not - A Loaded Question

At work, e-mail is the bane of my existence. Okay, that's probably a bit more dramatic than I wanted to be, but it's also like the stork bringing the proverbial bundle of joy (read: work, fires to put out, crises of crises).

On my home account, it's even more so.

I seem to be the intended target of e-mail marketers peddling a little bit of everything - either that or I've got "spam me" associated with my e-mail address (my apologies to Monty Python, the royalty check is in the mail, not).

I mean, looking back on it, I almost wish the US Postal Service had the gumption, back in the 80's, to implement a penny usage fee on every e-mail sent across the Internet, within the United States.

See, that way we could use a few of  the all-too-familiar processes that work with standard (snail) mail. Of those, my personal favorites being:

1) Return to Sender - we could receive their e-mail, choose to permanently prohibit additional mail and the USPS could collect fines for violations.

2) Unknown Address, Unable to Forward - this option would allow the owner of the e-mail in question to appear to be unusable; it would be most helpful in preventing the re-sale of verifiable e-mail addresses to other marketers

3) Deceased - the funniest one, directing the would-be marketer to a website to make a donation to defray from burial costs... sorry, starting to sound like the Globe Life goobers.

Now, I do think some type of governance on e-mail could be a good thing; but, given the reality of our fallen world, I know that the cure for what ails our mail should begin with how most of us approach the use of e-mail in the first place.

Top Ten Approaches To Taming E-mail:

1. Don't forward nothing you (yourself) have seen more than once - chances are, it's making it's rounds... again.

2. If it's clever, and someone else wrote it... the recipient has seen it, so don't send it.

3. If it's clever, and I wrote it, please send it along with something more than, "Hey y'all read this!"

4. If it's info needed inside of 24 hours, don't e-mail it... pick up the phone and call.

5. If it's info needed inside of a week, e-mail and follow-up with a call - e-mail could be down.

6. If someone asks you for someone's e-mail address, tell them to talk to that person.

7. If someone forwards an e-mail without writing a personal note - delete it.

8. If someone forwards an e-mail, writes a personal note, but it has more "FW's" in it than you have ounces of printer ink, delete it.

9. If someone forwards an e-mail, and it appears to be an 'end-of-civilization-as-we-know-it' type subject, investigate it and let them (and others if they were sent the same e-mail to their entire address book) know, in no uncertain terms your disappointment in what they've done and that they should have performed due diligence to know it that it was false or only half-true.

10. Don't open attachments, links or accept cookies unless you know how to get to the sender's house, in the middle of the night... because, when the spyware, virus and malware loads and destroys the hard drive (again), you can go to the sender's home, sit there long enough to tell them of your dissatisfaction via a healthy chorus of wailing, gnashing of teeth, shaving of the head, throwing on sackcloth and ashes after completely reading the first chapter of the Book of Job.

Yes, in a "perfect" world... there wouldn't even BE e-mail.