Email Issues and an Apology

Seriously, it might as well be snail mail.

Remember when Gmail became oh so efficient and started separating your incoming mail into categories, one of them named "promotions"? Well, most of us are on quite a few mailing lists that include more than just us, yet Gmail gives the stinkeye to those emails. What's even worse is that some of the personal emails we get come from friends and family using their work accounts. Again, not Google's favorite thing (though flagging those seem to have been random). And if you're a blogger who is both on many a mailing list AND have professional contacts sending everything from press releases to personal pitches, emails and birthday cards: forget about. Your Promotions folder will overflow before nine am every morning.

Which brings us to my own worst practice: at some point over the last year I started categorically emptying that folder with barely a glance at its actual content. Yes, once I found an email from my sister there just before I was going to hit "Delete All", and a couple of other relevant emails did survive the almost daily carnage, but too many days to count I've just purged a hundred emails at the time while paying more attention to saving my cereal bowl from Philip and Peter who have a thing for Special K.

So this is a formal apology, a request for mercy, and a promise that if I've neglected to reply to a personal and/or important email, it's most than likely the result of Gmail being an overachiever and me be an underachiever. A dangerous combination, for sure. So, please don't take it personally, please resend anything you think might be of importance, and please accept my humblest apologies. I promise to do better starting now.

Mea Culpa.