Lifetime Learning

As someone whose life history can be traced through her e-mail (and apparently I was born in 2005) I constantly face the battle of the bulging inbox. Or put another way, my computer administrator sends me frequent (daily) messages that my mailbox has reached its CAPACITY and I need to DO SOMETHING ABOUT THAT or I will be sorry. Really, really sorry. As in my life history will be halted.

When I get that warning I try to find the largest files and move them out of the inbox, and since my professional life is largely spent in graphics and publications, this usually does the trick. Today, though, I was determined to solve this problem for more than one day.

Can you hear the ominous music building in the background? I can certainly hear you telling me I should call someone in the tech center before I do anything, but I wasn't hearing you two hours ago. Nope, I decided I would autoarchive! To a .pst!

"But MomQueenBee," you're saying now, "do you have any idea what a .pst is?"

Well, I did not an hour ago but I do now. That's the sound I should have heard in the back of my head just before I accidentally bundled most of my e-mail into a file that is no longer easily accessible. Turns out it's important to check the date on the "autoarchive everything before this date" button and make sure that date isn't pre-set as today.

I happened to be instant messaging with Boy#2 when I sent my life history (aka "sent" mailbox) into limbo. He was not as sympathetic as I would have expected, if his LOLs and hahahaha's are any indication. But he did point out that this would be a learning experience, as I try to figure out how to extract at least a few months worth of messages so that I can do my job.

It's a good thing I work here--I don't think I could afford the tuition for all the learning experiences I'm having.