Not Out for The Count

It will prove to be, without doubt in my opinion, the greatest menace to the ongoing viabilty of the Western World?

There are countless other factors at play in the social and economic balance which could as easily be influential.

Take the escalation of domestic energy costs, loss of meaningful industrial production, the underlying increase in unemployment, racial tensions, shortages of natural resources and general dissatisfaction with life, for starters.

Lets face it, we have in the West enjoyed the ascendancy in lifestyle and fortunes that goes with an industrial based revolution and it is sadly over.

It has been replaced by the ironic use of the word "industry" attached to the offerings of a wholly Service based sector.

Our largest employers are now call centres, banking and administrative conglomerates, insurance and on-line global corporations.

Within these very organisations lurks the menace that I have alluded to.

It is the domain of the badly thought out and composed E-mail.

I am a bit of a dinosaur when it comes to the medium of an e-mail.

I remain resolute, in the face of ridicule, in the sanctity and provenance of a properly composed and set-out letter and only such a carefully forged and personally signed document will leave my desktop.

Colleagues in the office bang E mails out for everything from inter-workstation chatter and gossip even up to and including the most important of contractural documents on which the future operation of the company and the satisfaction, well being and wealth of our customers ultimately depends.

The audible signal from PC's upon the deposit in the inbox of a new message is a staccato accompaniment to the long working day. It is a badge of honour to acculmulate a good few hundred unopened E- mails and a hot topic of conversation around the water cooler or in the smoking room relates to the content of your Spam Quarantine Filter.

There is an immediacy and urgency to anything arriving as an E-mail and it is a form of competition to respond as quickly as possible. The inevitable sacrifice in this process is the abandonment of thought, rationality, common sense, compassion and grammar.

More working hours are taken up in repairing the damage and havoc wreaked by impulsive, inappropriate, offensive, inflammatory and all too revealing E mails than actual bona-fide work.

I have benefitted a few times from the unwitting disclosure from an E mail correspondent of the complete thread of a conversation which has, scrolling down through the 'CC's' and 'BCC's' been none too polite about me or otherwise quite flattering in making me out to be a contender or worthy adversary.

The Local Authority provided me with a complete mailing list of one of their Departments that overlapped with my sphere of work. Admittedly, it was in the days pre-Spam regulations and it was put to good use through what I understand to have been something called the mail-merge process.

The E mail has also contributed to a breakdown in staff morale and relations in some companies through cyber bullying or other forms of intimidation which if attaining the Enquiry or Tribunal stage can cost a tangible proportion of the annual profit.

A personal E-mail emanating from a workstation can have deep ramifications if accidentally (or intentionally) copied in to fellow employees. Forthcoming date nights, liaisons, sexual peccadilloes and intimate nicknames can be thrust into the public domain to cause distress, embarassment or equal quantities of surprise, notoriety and inter-office celebrity.

To a certain extent the emergence of social media has provided a communication channel to bypass the E-mail particularly in, again, personal chatter but on the downside for the balance sheet is the loss of productivity as private matters are pursued in working hours.

I have been inspired to write on this subject by a recent appeal by BBC 6 Music's Radcliffe and Maconie for listeners to send in their personal experiences of one particularly prevalent E mail trait, that of the incorrectly keyed single letter in a message.

The sheer volume of offerings was testament to the lurking menace and insidiousness of this all powerful form of communication even if a genuine mistake or with cold, cruel intent.

Sarcasm in a message following a poor service from an on line computer helpdesk was somewhat lost in "many thanks for the assistance, Kind Retards ......"

A Dating Agency contacted one of its unattached Clients wishing them a "Lonely weekend".

An employee E-mailing a height challenged boss over their delayed arrival at an appointment concluded with "see you shorty".

My favourite one. A meeting of friends would not be possible as the writer was tired out after "a long, hard and difficult eight hour shit"

I tank you for your attention,