I’m getting misty…
As I close in on my last few days at this job, I’m realizing the things I will lose when I leave it. Like my email. I’ve been here for a little over two years. They’ve been a pretty eventful and though I’m not great at keeping a journal, I am good at keeping my friends posted on the most minute, and often humiliating, details of my life. So my “Personal” email folder records better than my head ever could the events of the past two years.
And I can’t save it. Even if I could put it on a disk and somehow open it up at home, my work computer won’t read CD-Rs for some reason. So when I leave here, that history dies. I have to delete it. Whole relationships, minor and brief flirtations, friendships started and ended, embarrassing epiphanies, pictures of new babies and puppies, and party postmortems are detailed in those emails.
BFE suggested that I could print out the important ones, and I think I’ll do some of that. Or forward them to my yahoo account or something. But I’m not going to print out every funny email from my ex-boyfriend, or wisely worded one from my mom. There’s too many. Plus, what would I do with them then? File them in a drawer in my apartment somewhere?
I’m a little baffled at the moment by how fleeting and ephemeral email is. It makes me want to start hand writing letters, or sending more cards. Or maybe it’s a reminder that I should relegate personal email to my yahoo account.
July 16th, 2005 at 4:27 pm
“Work” e-mail are like cancelled checks and old bill statements, at some point you know you needed to hold on to them…later, you sometimes think why…and worse, you don’t know how to get rid of it all. I think I ended up just dumping all my office work/personal e-mail (and the junk in my desk…papers, pens, work promo gifts, food snacks) before I left.
July 17th, 2005 at 1:20 pm
Hey. You could archive your mail using Entourage and use ftp to move it to an accessible location for later. I think you might have a friend who could help you out with this, if you need it.
Keep your email, you’ll want it later.