I make a point of trying to clear my inbox before I leave the office in the evening. That way – in theory, at any rate – I can start the new day with a clean slate.
However, in the ongoing grudge match between Theory and Practice, Theory is taking a severe pounding. For some inexplicable reason, some people insist on sending me emails after hours so that my inbox is always clogged when I get to work the next morning.
Perhaps they expect me to be impressed by their apparent diligence, but I just find it annoying. And kind of sad. I mean, fuck, even if you don’t have a life, you can at least pretend that you do.
If you’re a vampire, then you should be out feeding on the blood of the living or touching up your sparkles or whatever. Your street cred may have been utterly destroyed by Stephenie Meyer, but really, you should not – I repeat, NOT – be hunched over your keyboard demanding project progress updates from me.
the other side of the mountain 
they do it on purpose to win ‘boss points’. didn’t you get the memo?
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shit… FIRST!
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Ask questions later?
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*giggle*
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Maybe you should Practice the life out of that Theory rather than let it continue to get pounded.
psst..don’t tell Jebus H. Krispies but I say “FIRST”
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crap..daisy beat me..go to bed woman!!its late for old folks like you!!!
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ooppss..that should say.’sucking the life out of”
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((hugs))) Daisy
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I’m going to back away slowly now, ok?
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hold me, I’m scared.
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There, there *pat pat*
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that just bites
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I know! It’s a total pain in the neck.
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Thank you. I thought I was the only one who obsessively checked the time/date stamp on all my emails.
Someday I’ll be first. Someday…
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I have to do it. I am heartily sick of hearing, “But I sent it to you yesterday. Why has nothing been done yet?”
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Considering the fact that I’m reading your blog at 11p, and have no life, maybe I shouldn’t comment. Wait! I just did! Rats.
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Maybe I shouldn’t answer. Damn!
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I get that too, and to top that off? My email forwards home.
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You’ve just raised the stakes.
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My approach? Leave work early, but schedule emails to go out at ungodly hours. Then the boss *thinks* you’re a slave to the machine, and you’re having your second cocktail. FTW!
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You obviously don’t have the explosive collar protocol in place at your office.
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Someone sent me an email at 4-26am on Mon. 4-26am!!!! He wanted me to attend a meeting in his place. Next week! It wasn’t even that urgent.
That has to top the people with “no life” list.
Bloody vampire!
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Better than being a bloody agent.
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Or a bloody octopus.
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The worst is when they put a read-receipt on it. I usually just delete all emails sent in the early hours of the morning without reading them. I mean really, who thinks straight and has reasonable requests at that hour?
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This is the corporate world. Nobody thinks.
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You tell ’em Kyk
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I do. Over and over again. Doesn’t do any good, though.
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Erm…should one admit to being old enough to have dealt with telex? No, didn’t think so so I shan’t. (I shall now go back to my real life…a glass of sparkles, a man…yep! that’s about it.)
I’ll just email wotsisface about our meeting…
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I used to love telex. Telex was real. No-one wasted telex because it cost. Happy days.
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And it made tiny confetti. How cool was that?
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Good god! How old are you two geriatrics anyway?
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43. But the oil / shipping industry hung on to telex longer than most. Sigh.
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I have a client who regularly emails me at 3.30 a.m.and 4.00 a.m – before he goes to gym!! Vampire health nut? Makes my blood run cold.
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Nah. Just a garden variety nut.
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Of course what some sad, sad, pointless, masturbating bastards do is set up their email so that a message can be postponed a few hours and then go home, so that, in fact, they are only pretending to have no life.
Of course, this is great cover for real vampires: “But officers, this drained, lifeless cropse can have nothing to do with me: I was at the office all night. Here, look at all the emails I sent…”
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Pretending to have no life? I think Occam’s razor just whimpered.
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“…what some sad, sad, pointless, masturbating bastards do is set up their email so that a message can be postponed a few hours and then go home, so that, in fact, they are only pretending to have no life.”
No, no seriously. I WAS having a cocktail. What’s that you say? That hair on my hands? *ahem*….
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See? I’m commenting at 4:16 PM!!! PM!! Because, I like SOOOO TOTALLY have a life. A life that does not suck!
Oh, who am I kidding… I’m just an old bat with reversed insomnia.
Does this mean that my nocturnal dispatches and musings and comments have all ended up at the bottom of the pile though? *Sob* Or are blog contacts in a different pile than colleagues? A SPECIAL pile?
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Of course you’re on a special pile. I make sure I have a healthy work / no life balance.
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I’ll try to remember not to email you in the wee hours. It’s going to be hard to restrain myself, but I believe I can beat my desire to be a pain in the neck… I’ll crack on with knitting a doily instead, okay? 😉
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I recommend real leather restraints. Far better than the faux kind.
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Of course it’ll be real leather – I’m not some tree-hugging veggie, you know! 😛 Silk is nice too, btw…
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Ja, silk looks good, but it wears out quickly.
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I have people who call and leave voicemails after I’ve gone home for the day asking if they can come in that day or will I call them back today. I mean, if it’s 6pm, what are they thinking? That maybe I live there at the office, working around the clock?
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Then again, our clients aren’t exactly poster children for middle-of-the-bell-curve normality, so you have to give them that.
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Oh my God, I can sooooo relate, well, if we substitute ‘receiving 3am emails’ with ‘receiving 3am screams from my toddler’, who seems to think that I am, like, on call 24hours a day….
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Can’t you activate your auto-reply function?
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Even if I don’t have a life, I can at least pretend that I do?
Oh, I have been doing something terribly, terribly wrong all these years …
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Me too! Imagine my surprise when I discovered that putting on shoes and socks works MUCH better if you you don’t do it in that order.
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Woah. I go away for a few weeks (Google reader) and your whole blog has a makeover? I like it. Much modener*.
I’m one of those losers of which you speak. I have no life. Sad panda.
😦
* Of course that’s a real word!
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You’re a vampire? Fascinating. Certain things start to make sense now.
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“Nocturnal Emissions” phwhahahaha – best undercover headline – ever!
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It just came to me.
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Vampires need to be beheaded. The stake through the heart is just to hold them in place while you chop their heads off. Oh, and crosses don’t work against Jewish vampires.
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– unless they’re made of bacon.
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