The e-mail generation

Today started with a degree of Mnghh!

Its that feeling that is neither apprehension nor dread, Neither reluctance nor disinclination but a feeling of mild aversion combined with a knowledge that there are things that must be done.

Basically there is something that I have been assigned by one of the Lesser Demons down at Dante's. I have done the necessary thinking about it and I've even knocked up a couple of sketches but I now need to document it formally and send out to vaguely disinterested parties.

Hence today started with a degree of Mnghh!

I wish my day started like Marauder's seem to start. Marauder loves her bed and she likes to wake slowly. She will spend several minutes just squirming with the delight of being a dog and knowing that today is going to be pretty much exactly like yesterday. You can see a grin appear on her face and she positively wriggles as she realises that the agenda includes playing with Sell-by-Date and Tyson, threatening behaviour towards the chickens, chasing TP, eating a variety of delicacies including horse shit and possibly chicken feathers, a nice long walk during the bad man's lunch break followed by a number of naps including at least one on the premium spot on her favourite sofa.

Her expression shows that her world really cant get any better. I wish I felt like that when I wake up.

Now don't get me wrong, I tend to wake and feel pretty good about my world. But compared to Marauder I am a rank amateur about feeling good. She makes the happy people that you see in the world of TV advertising - You know the ones - unbelievably smug and happy and cheesy - seem positively suicidal - She really knows how to start the day feeling GOOD.

Before today's activities a quick review of yesterday. It went well. A few pints of homemade Pea and Ham soup are now residing in the freezer and there is enough of the garage floor clear to warrant sweeping it. In fact, there was enough space that TP's bike was upended had it's puncture repaired.

This evening has seen TP and I load up the "eco wagon" or "Prius" as she will be known and take a visit to the local Refuse Site thus opening up a whole new swathe of garage floor.

I am hoping that this improvement in the condition of the lawn mower's quarters will get Amnesty International off my back. I have replied to their letter advising that it is not "incarceration without trial" but "protective custody" as the village newsletter has indicated an upturn in the number of shed thefts. Their initial response is not encouraging !

Right - I'm getting to the e-mail generation but I needed a bit of padding before I started on them. Don't worry - all will become apparent in a minute.

As I said, the day started with a feeling of Mnghh but I knuckled down and turned my sketches in to clear illustrations, embedded them in to an e-mail with concise but informative thoughts and dispatched it to the appropriate recipients / victims.

As is generally the case, it went a whole lot better than expected and I again wondered why it is human nature to procrastinate.

Anyway this leads me to my classification of certain people as "the e-mail generation". They can be defined as individuals who are generally under the age of 35 and consequently have grown up with computers in general and e-mail in particular.

The phrase e-mail generation sums up their capacity to take in information. Basically if it cannot be presented in the preview panel of an e-mail application then don't bother. They don't have the mental capacity to take in anything that cannot be described in a couple of sentences. Forget paragraphs or embedded documents. these references will cause paralysis of the mouse hand and a complete inability to use the scroll bars or the little wheel that they now install on mouses.

The reason I cover the subject referenced in the title of this blog so late in the text is because the e-mail generation will have gone away to gaze at their navels on Facebook or MySpace by now.

My role in Dante's Nine Circles of Hell involves quite complex technical elements and often you need to write several pages with cross references and diagrams to get the full picture across. So you can imagine how bloody frustrated I get when a member of the e-mail generation wants a chat about it but isn't willing to engage any mental gears because their thought capacities are filled with the need to change their relationship status on Facebook and their work related plans for a whole new circle of Hell.

I have had situations where I have had to read documents to people and I'm sure they are not illiterate - bone idle - but not illiterate.

Anyway - my impact analysis was issued and one of the recipients has actually read it and agreed with my logic - a whoohoo moment. Unfortunately the actual "Doers" have not bothered to respond yet and I have a feeling of dread as my ability to look in to the future kicks in and I see several conference calls repeatedly explaining the complex to the e-mail generation.