When I was employed, I always had a lot of email. Much of it was sought intentionally, from news entities, so that I could purloin stories for our work blog.
One of the things I learned by trial and error: if you nick from one source, it’s stealing. If you take from several sources, it’s “procuring.” And the entities I was purloining from never cared as long as I did three things: link to the original article, take no more than three paragraphs, and not give away the ANSWER in the quoted material.
This was a task I often gave to the interns because we were posting five days a week for a time before we cut back to thrice a week. The site’s all but defunct, but so it goes.
My personal email was totally out of control as well. Last year, I whittled it down from an absurd 10K or more to a still insane 4000. A lot of them are things I want to write about or read about. Maybe THIS year I’ll create that Wikipedia piece about my late friend Raoul Vezina. There are about 100 emails, with attachments, on that topic alone.
And still, it comes
But that’s not my real problem. It’s the damn influx of NEW email. During the 2020 campaign, I could be getting maybe 20 emails per HOUR, and I’d skim most of them. Mostly they were political in nature. I thought they’d end after the November 2020 election. Oh, but then there’d be a new wave about the special runoffs in Georgia on January 5. Now, are we done?
Nah, there is always another issue. And most of the sources I didn’t solicit but had gotten my info from someone else. So I’ve gotten vicious with the Unsubscribe button. Most of the entities write, “Please don’t go. Would you like fewer emails?” Too late, Jack.
And on the print side
Actually, my snail mail has declined over time. Much of that is a function of paying bills online. Still, I get a lot of solicitations from not-for-profits for money. And they include “incentives.” More than one has included mailing labels. You might be amazed how many packets of those I’ve shredded each year.
A few include these little notepads. We use them for shopping lists. But we still don’t send money. One even sent a Kennedy half dollar to show that their cause was in the spirit of the 35th President. Or something. I wasn’t guilted into giving them anything either.
Louie, Louie
Much of my email lately is about how truly terrible Louis DeJoy is. He’s the Postmaster-General whose “leadership” has delayed stimulus checks, lost vital medication, and, boldly, try to sabotage democracy.
At a hearing in mid-February, pretty much promised to make the service worse. His plan seems to be to get rid of priority mail, eliminate overtime for postal workers, and raise the price of stamps.
President Biden can’t fire him outright. But he can nominate people to the USPS Board of Governors who can oust him. And that would be a good thing.
