The Columnist Manifesto

Well, it finally happened:

***** Automated Message - Please do not Reply *****

The [Freakin'] email account you use at the University provides you with 100MB of free storage. Your account is now full and you have stopped receiving new mail.

Those who send you messages are receiving a notice that their messages to you are undeliverable.

Thank you,
System Administrator

I can't say I wasn't warned. And yet, what a shocker! This was Sunday, and I was in the office having Sunday-in-the-office feelings of isolation and unreality, and then to get this. I frantically deleted hundres of emails to clear space, but I got the freakin' over-capacity message again! I went to the IT web site to buy more storage space, only to find that that service could not be purchased on the weekend.

I was trapped! Think of all the emails from students who couldn't download that attachment I sent the class. And all the emails from wealthy Nigerians who need my bank account number so they can temporarily hold $4 million in my account for a few days, for which they will gladly pay me $100,000 as a thank you gift. These email senders will get a terse "undelivered" message and their emails will be lost to me forever!

Filled with frustration and rage, I searched my inbox to determine which email it was that put me over the limit. And then I had this thought: why blame the last email? Really, all of the emails contributed their proportional share to my filled-capacity problem. Longer ones take up more space, of course, but some are more important to me than others and deserve more space.

In the end, I decided to blame this email: One that most combines pointless inanity with the possibility of some professional obligation, so that I can't delete it until I read it and deal with it, yet I can't read it until I'm not terribly busy because it's so inane. I won't give you the text (I deleted it), but just the subject line:

Update on panels for forums

Can you blame me for not opening an email that says "Update on panels for forums"? I mean -- what panel? What forum? Does any email say "get information about opportunities for unrewarding, pointless but time-filling talk" more than this? If there is a bane of life as an academic, it has to be receiving updates on panels for forums. And yet, what if I were on the panel and the sender was just too dumb to put the name of the panel in the subject line?

This is the email that brought my email account crashing down last Sunday. I guess this provides the answer to my question, "what happens to an email unread"?