Fall favourites
Ongoing
Sharing my laptop with our kitten
Sunny has fallen in love with my laptop. I guess it is because it is nice and warm, and stuff moves across the screen. She has found keyboard commands with her bum and paws that I never knew existed.
Tried to move her off the laptop for about fifteen times but she keeps coming back. I am getting outsmarted and outhustled by a kitten.Lori and Sunny
Snow Patrol opening for U2 in Toronto
Random Stuff – May 30
“ ‘Das Boot’ is the bible for any band that toured on a bus,” Mr. Hansard explained. “It’s the guide about how to live with a bunch of men.”
From an old New York Times article – Really enjoyed the movie Once
“The pellet with the poison’s in the vessel with the pestle; the chalice from the palace has the brew that is true!”
From the Danny Kaye page at Reelclassics.com – Love, love, love that site. I’ve been going to it regularly for ten years now. Can’t say that about many other websites. It’s the best resource for classic movies on the web.
Email overload through the ages
Here are two quotes from newspaper articles about email overload in the workplace.
It seems that people are so busy wading through the overload and responding that they don’t have time for real work. […] A few companies are taking corrective action. Computer Associates, based in Islandia, L.I., shuts down its E-mail system for four hours a day, between 10 A.M. and noon and again between 2 P.M. and 4 P.M. “People were spending too much time on E-mail,” said Marc Sokol, vice president of advanced technology. “We said, ‘Use it intelligently, don’t use it spuriously.’ ” Until employees got used to the restrictions, Mr. Sokol said, they found the experience similar to quitting smoking. Now, he added: “Productivity is up. It has caused people to be more thoughtful.”
wit’s end: Coping With E-Mail Overload, The New York Times
Overwhelmed by e-mail? Some professionals are fighting back by declaring e-mail-free Fridays — or by deleting their entire in-box. Today about 150 engineers at chipmaker Intel will kick off “Zero E-mail Fridays.” E-mail isn’t forbidden, but everyone is encouraged to phone or meet face-to-face. […] E-mail-free Fridays already are the norm at cell carrier U.S. Cellular and at order-processing company PBD Worldwide Fulfillment Services in Alpharetta, Ga.
Fridays go from casual to e-mail-free, USA Today
The biggest difference between the two quotes? Eleven years.
The New York Times article is from April 1996, the USA Today article from October 2007. Apparently not much has changed in all those years, even though “experts” were already hoping for better times in 1998:
Despite the e-mail glut problems, there is optimism among e-mail experts that new solutions – both technological and behavioral – will keep pace with higher e-mail volumes.
E-mail overload drives many users bananas, NetworkWorld Fusion (via CNN.com)
Ten years later, the technological and behavioural solutions still haven’t fully caught up with the ever increasing volume of email (numbers are up from 15.1 billion in 2000 to 97.3 billion emails per day in 2007 according to IDC research quoted in the USA Today article). Otherwise we wouldn’t continue to see the same type of email overload articles year after year after year.
No doubt email overload has been and continues to be a problem for many people. Just this weekend I read a another article (in German) about a German company prohibiting email use two days a month. But I am not a big fan of organized email prohibition, whether it is a top-down decree by the company leadership or a bottom-up idea from a group of employees.
In the end, every individual needs to take charge of how they best manage their communication – every day of the week.
Because it gets worse. Thanks to other changes in technology and behaviour, (yep, I am talking about that Web 2.0 thing and the rise of, you guessed it, social media), email overload articles are not alone anymore. We now have journalists and a whole blogosphere continually discussing the potential benefits or repercussions of using blogs, RSS feeds, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and all the other tools for communication. How do we keep up with all of this if email management still is a problem? Will we still have a social media overload discussions in eleven years?
“There’s going to be a point where culture and common sense are going to start to take over,” [Rapport Communications consultant Gary] Rowe said, “because there’s only so much of this we can process.”
E-mail overload drives many users bananas, NetworkWorld Fusion (via CNN.com), June 1998
My guess is that every person needs to find that point for herself or himself. I wouldn’t wait for your company or colleagues to do it for you.
A friend of mine for years refused to get her own cell phone even though she saw many of the benefits. She argued that “once people know I have it, they will expect to reach me 24/7”. I never bought that argument (but she eventually bought a cell phone). A cell phone can be switched off. Email – and expectations – can be managed by ourselves. And so can social media tools.
Overload, more often than not, is a fact. But it can also be a state of mind.
"I don’t like the sound of my turn signals"
From the next-time-let’s-not-make-conversation department:
Heavy traffic in Toronto. We’re coming to a halt at an intersection, two cars between me and the red light. The light turns green and both cars in front of me start signalling for a left turn. By the time the oncoming traffic has passed and they are gone, the traffic light is red again. We have to wait for another round.
Me: “You know, they should have signalled way earlier.”
Passenger (P): “Who?”
Me: “The two cars in front of us.”
P: “Why?”
Me: “Are you serious? Because I would have changed to the right lane, and would have made it across when it was green. Instead they stop at the lights and it looks like they want to go straight. Then they wait until the lights turn green to signal. And I am stuck behind them. Can’t they make up their mind when they approach the traffic light?”
P: “It’s okay. We’ll still make it in time.”
Me: “That’s not the point.”
P: “I know what your point is. Unless you want to chase after them to yell or make European gestures, let it go.
Me: “European gestures? I take offense to that. And I don’t want to go after them, I am just saying…”
P: “You couldn’t go after them anyway. Because it would mean that you would have to use your left turn signal now. And that would really annoy the driver behind you. Because you should have signalled way earlier if you want to make a left turn.”
Me: “Do you want to walk the rest of the way?”
The light turns green.
Two miles later.
P: “You know, I do that all the time.”
Me: “What?”
P: “Not signal until the light turns green.”
Me: “Why? WHY?”
P: “I don’t like the sound of my turn signals.”