I feel like one key factor in growing up is the use of e-mail in an unironic way. I have a long history of not quite understanding this form of communication. I remember in 3rd or 4th grade asking my mom whether I could finally make an e-mail address. I proudly became miranda.cecil@triad.rr.com. If we hadn't moved out of the country two years later, I probably would've stuck with that until I graduated to a university e-mail.
Tragically, however, I created a gmail account. My parents sat next to me as I selected an e-mail based on my hobbies of gymnastics and... being a girl, apparently. I became bendychick6@gmail.com. Luckily, my middle and high school provided e-mails too, and I was able to be miranda.cecil@isbasel.ch. That was good for anything serious, like sending teachers e-mails and whatnot, but by the time we moved back to the U.S. and I lost my privileges to that domain, I knew I needed to begin anew - CollegeBoard could not see bendychick6@gmail.com.
A new age began, with an appropriate e-mail address containing my full name. Still, though, I used it mostly for pictures. A 102-year old's knowledge of Facebook far outpaced by knowledge of how to use my e-mail account.
This summer, plunged into corporate America and for the first time in my life expected to actually understand how to use an e-mail address beyond responding to other people, I thought I became something of a whizkid. I knew how to create a signature, how to send, receive, and forward, and even how to make an e-mail confidential, and subsequently impossible to forward or screenshot.
After all of this, there was just one thing that still eluded me: the need to clean out my inbox. On December 23rd, I received a startling message: my university e-mail was to be deleted due to "negligence".
To warn others who may be like me: You have to delete e-mails occasionally. I, unaware, hadn't done this since enrolling at UNC. I had my acceptance e-mail sitting in my inbox! Which, though nice to look back on, certainly tells you something critical.
I've created a short list of five easy steps to get through the process:
1. Open your inbox.
Become immediately ashamed of how much is in said inbox, and hope that nobody sees.
2. Begin deleting e-mail at a rampant rate.
Growing, of course, more frustrated with every click.
3. Discover that, even though the inbox may be done, the junk mail, clutter, deleted e-mail, and sent mail must also be deleted.
Who knew, right?
4. Sit back in satisfaction, gazing upon your achievements.
You did it! Congrats!
5. Receive an e-mail.
The AUDACITY after all your hard work! How dare th--- oh. It's an out of office reply.
We all have to get to a point someday where we can clean out our e-mail every now and again. Here's hoping that day comes sooner rather than later.