Talking in Circles: The E-mail Loop...

Is it just me, or does anyone else out there have trouble cutting off e-mail messages? Someone sends you a message, you reply—or vice-versa—but neither of you seems to know where the virtual convers-E-tion ends. What follows is an endless trail of niceties (“Thanks.” “You’re welcome.” “Take care.” “You, too…”) until one of you breaks the cycle, still unsure as to whether the virtual dialogue has ended, or if you’ve maybe been rude, abrupt or just dropped off. And you end up spending another, I don’t know, 20 or so minutes trading signoffs like ping-pong balls—à la the classic cartoon chipmunks: “Thank you. No, thank you… No, thank you….”Okay, maybe that’s an exaggeration, but you get my point. Call it e-mail separation anxiety.

Whereas with a telephone conversation, you would both say good-bye without hesitation, not so with most e-mail speak. Not that I don’t like e-mail. Quite the contrary—I’m addicted. Maybe the answer’s closer than we think. We could always sample lingo from other places, maybe use walkie-talkie jargon like “over and out.” Somehow, though, nothing seems to fit.

All of this e-mail separation anxiety reminds me of an old Carol Burnett skit I once saw—I was just a child when it aired, of course. In the skit, the players are poking fun at office politics, or etiquette, so to speak. There are these two employees, let’s say Tim Conway and Harvey Corman for effect, though I’m not certain. If you don’t recognize the names (even younger than me, huh?), just picture Martin Lawrence and Steve Harvey pulling it off. So these two characters see each other at the office first thing in the morning and say a hearty “Hello.” Cool. When they see each other a little later on, out of courtesy, of course, they say hello again; but, by the third or fourth time, it’s getting a little tired and each of them is getting annoyed. It gets to the point where one finally resorts to climbing out of his office window and walking the ledge to avoid another meeting, but—you guessed it—he meets up with his officemate coming around the ledge’s corner.

Maybe you haven’t gone that far yet, maybe you have, but it just strikes me as kind of funny, that’s all. Hey, maybe you’ve solved the problem already. If so, could you give a sister a holler? Thanks. Bye. Peace out. ‘Preciate it. Take care….