Email love

I should not be blogging. I have a long list of things to do before Saturday morning, but apparently I'm procrastinating.

Can I just tell you that I love email? I was counting up how long I've had an email account, and I think I got my first one in seventh grade from school. And now I've had the same Gmail account for almost six years, and I pretty much have every email from the last six years still there (I might be an electronic packrat).

I don't want this to sound bad, but I really don't like talking on the phone. This is why I didn't last as a reporter. Now that I don't live close to home, I do enjoy talking on the phone to my family and close friends. But if the general day-to-day stuff can be managed with an email or two versus a phone call and subsequent phone tag, I'm all for it. I also know I get things across better in written form. Plus seeing a new email (in my personal inbox, work's another story) makes me happy.

When I was the secretary for my sorority in college, I set up email accounts to manage things that used to require either phone calls or keeping up with paper. I am proud to say those systems are not only still in place, but they have been expanded.

I picked out my latest hair salon based on the fact I could email to set up my appointments (plus they send me email offers now). I used to set up oil changes and maintenance on my car all by email too (I still get offers from them several hundred miles away). And now that it's Girl Scout cookie time, I think I might not have refused to sell them if I could have done it through email and Facebook as my co-workers and friends are doing.

But I've never dealt with a doctor or doctor's office by email. If they even have email, I've doubted that they would respond quickly. And usually when you're dealing with a medical issue, you want a quick resolution or as quick as possible when you have to go through the voice activated phone system, leave a message, get a call back from the nurse and then wait for another call back from the doctor.

My doctor in town is part of the university hospital here, and the health system has a user interface to manage your health care stuff with. I signed up for it and find it useful in terms of finding out test results, but again, I doubted I could really communicate with my doctor through it. But this week after getting impatient with the calling system, I decided to give it a shot. Granted, it wasn't an instantaneous response, but my issue was resolved with one quick exchange by email. And now I will have confidence about using it again.

So, yes, I love email, and this experience made me think about all the ways it has saved me from talking on the phone. Of course I will say the one thing better than email is snail mail, and I got some personal snail mail in the mail today that made me smile.

OK, now I must fold some laundry and wash the dishes in the sink.