Unstoppable

Jeff Glor: What inspired you to write this book [The Interrogative Mood]?
Padgett Powell: Let us say I received workplace emails exclusively in the interrogative, like this: "Is it time for our esteemed Director [I was the Director] to have a chat with the Provost about our autonomy? Are we remembering what was promised us last spring by the Dean? Will we be content, again, to let History repeat itself?" and let us say I started wanting to have some ready answers: How do you stand in relation to the potato? Do you love the velvet ant as much as I?

And could not stop, for 140 pages.

—CBS

(Via TEV)

What fuchsia means

"She doesn’t really understand the use of ellipsis so a lot… of her…..emails…look like this…"
—Malty

XOXO

For Daniel Morrison, CEO of the D.C.-based international relief nonprofit 1Well, the wrong sign-off posed an impediment to deeper romance. "I sent an e-mail to a girlfriend, and she was very put off by me signing off with 'Regards,' saying that I sounded very 'emotionally detached,' " Morrison says via e-mail. "We did break up shortly thereafter, so maybe she was right."—Washington Post

(From Jenny)

Definitely the next

COLUMBUS, OH—A bravely worded e-mail written by graphic designer Brent Quigley decrying his advertising firm's "complete lack of managerial competence" and its "utter failure to treat employees with respect" has remained inside the drafts folder since it was first composed on Dec. 4, 2007.

"I'm going to send it soon—if not this week, definitely the next," said Quigley, who often opens the e-mail, corrects spelling and syntax errors, and saves the changes before relegating the fearless letter back to his drafts folder....

—From "Courageous E-mail to Boss in Drafts Folder Since December," The Onion

Printer's ball

During the workday, many interoffice emails arrive in my inbox with this message at the bottom: "Please consider the environment before choosing to print this email." There must have been a company-wide campaign at some point before I arrived; I don't have the banner, but it seems like most people do...But...this consciousness-raising banner doesn't just appear onscreen; it shows up at the bottom of the page if you decide to go ahead and hit "print"...

Read more of Mollie's "Today's Office Irony."

"Is it my fault you have meetings out the wazoo?"

Ohio Attorney General's e-mails are a "mix of bureaucratic jargon, party planning, frequent hair references and oddly chummy repartee." —The Columbus Dispatch

(Via.)

"Wired" review

"[H]ysterical...Told in first-person collective through outlined agendas and desperate e-mails, Park's story is set in an absurd yet believable workplace where personnel, shutting down their computers for the weekend, earnestly consider the pop-up question 'Are you sure you want to quit?' " —Jay Ruben Dayrit, Wired (May), 8 out of 10 circle thingies

Haiku tunnel

He writes haiku about emails without making you think he's being anachronistic: "In that otherworld/ Where we met when we emailed/ There is no other."—Telegraph, on poet Robert Crawford