Welcome To “I’m Digging Out!” Monday (Every Year)

What’s funny is that email isn’t even the boondoggle anymore that we all claim it is.

I started working in probably 2003. For a few years, I was a Teach for America corps member, which is a bit different than white-collar hustling. Let’s say I’ve been in B2B and B2C “knowledge work” (offensive term, as welders have more knowledge than most “marketing managers” do) for 17–18 years. One of the most notable things for me about the Monday after Thanksgiving week/weekend is that literally no one does anything in offices (or remotely). All they do is claim to be “digging out of emails!” or “catching up!,” which was always hysterical to me because it implied that lots of work emails were happening over a holiday weekend. In some industries, that’s true. Most of the time, it’s complete bullshit. I’m definitely not an “executive” or a “decision-maker,” but on Friday I stopped looking at my email before the USA-England game and I didn’t look at it until Saturday morning. I had 191 emails. Two of them were relevant. Most were just Black Friday spammy stuff.

The other funny thing about “I’m so busy digging out!” is that email really isn’t the problem anymore. Don’t get me wrong — some people still love the bludgeon of the reply all, and it’s comical how bad some are at managing their…