Don't Rely on E-mail During Crunch Time
Hello all, sorry for the absence. Been busy as hell. Anyway, I wrote a rant awhile ago about how people who rely on email for “time-sensitive” information are simply foolish. As I was writing, it became so long that it was better suited as an article rather than a blog post. So “Don’t Rely on Email During Crunch Time” is out there on Intranet Journal. It even has my mug-shot goodness 🙂
This all stemmed from the zillion times over the years when users have yelled at me for their email taking too long to get somewhere. In pretty much 99% of the cases, it was some technical issues on the receiving end of the mail, so it wasn’t even our system’s fault. Each time I had to remind the user that I wouldn’t use email for time-sensitive mission-critical “oh-my-god-it-needs-to-be-there-now” type correspondence. Hopefully this gives you some ammo to do the same.
Please Digg it if you’re into that sort of thing!
October 10, 2006 @ 7:58 pm
Great article, way to make your point in clear and concise terms, Grey! And thanks for clearing up where those stupid winmail.dat attachments come from, grr! Can’t wait to read the crackberry rant.
-Uturn
October 11, 2006 @ 11:07 am
Hey there John.
GREAT article. I particularly liked (and thoroughly agree with) your final sentence. Very well put.
-Devin.
October 12, 2006 @ 5:25 pm
Totally dug it.
I submitted it to our internal Notes distribution…it didn’t seem all that time sensitive, so was probably an o.k. way to go.
….Deb
October 12, 2006 @ 8:50 pm
It’s not just a problem with delayed delivery of emails.
The same goes for SMS. I have received some SMS messages days after they were sent.
October 12, 2006 @ 10:40 pm
Excellent article. I sent the link to quite a few people. I have been getting a lot of the “I just sent a message and person X hasn’t gotten it yet” type questions and this was just what I needed.
October 13, 2006 @ 7:55 am
Glad you folks all liked it. And Gregg, I’m glad to help. I’ve architected email systems for a decade, and I must get that same “X hasn’t gotten it yet” question/statement/accusation once a week. And damn near every time I’ve researched, it was something beyond on our control.
People take email for granted now, but they need to realize how much actually happens behind the scenes!
If this article allows every admin to get one person to stop complaining, it’s done it’s job!
October 15, 2006 @ 6:56 am
Just one question though…..when did you start working as an enforcer for the mob? That mug shot would definitely make any Gambino boy proud!
Sean—
October 16, 2006 @ 8:45 am
Gee… I’m going to have to forward this to my former client. I would get those type of emails all the time and they’d be surprised when the work wasn’t done 🙂
Great job.