I am technically retired from Publishers Weekly, but I still do freelance copy editing for them. Currently, I am working on the magazine’s special issue for its 150th anniversary — yes, it started in 1872.
Today I got a phone call from the editor in charge of the issue while I was out for a walk before the rain my weather app told me was due in half an hour. He told me that a file I had been asking about for a few days, he had sent to me three times, including today. I knew I hadn’t gotten
Then it hit me, because this had happened before. Somehow I accidentally told Outlook that one of his e-mails was junk, and Outlook had dutifully sent all of his subsequent e-mails to the junk folder.
Sure enough, as soon as I got home, I checked the junk folder, and there were about 20 e-mails, including three with work I need to do. What a bummer. However, now it is fixed — and I have a lot of work to do.
Do you use Outlook? Has this ever happened to you?
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Oh no! That's an unpleasant surprise! Hope your mail has now "learned" not to put those in junk in the future!
ReplyDeleteyes, it has! thank you.
DeleteThis kind of technical bossiness is really difficult to untangle. So glad you were able to sort things out, but what a discovery!
ReplyDeleteYou are so right about "technical bossiness." This is a Microsoft product, and they tend toward the "we know how you're going to want to do things, and we won't give you any choice about it."
DeleteHas that particular wrinkle ever befallen me? Not yet. But has technology zigged when I was expecting it to zag? Pretty much every day. Happy to hear that you got to the bottom of this particular mystery and could continue on your appointed editing rounds.
ReplyDeleteDoesn't it feel like your own brain has frozen when tech doesn't do what you expect? I'm glad I remembered this little problem area.
DeleteYikes! Fortunately, you figured out what was going on. I don't use Outlook, but I have a track record for technical difficulties. You are not alone.
ReplyDeleteOy, Outlook is often no friend of mine. Though, sometimes it's psychic, which I don't think is better. At my old job, it started putting emails from a difficult coworker into a folder called "unwanted" just at the moment when our working relationship was truly souring. He kept telling me he'd emailed me, and I kept not seeing his emails ... because Outlook knew I really didn't want to see them!
ReplyDeleteOMG! That is totally eerie. So glad that was a former job.
DeleteI mean, I guess it's good you figured it out, but yucky to having all that to do now. I guess that's how it goes. Work takes work, even when it gets "thrown" in the "junk" pile. Hope it goes speedy for you.
ReplyDeleteThank you. I am catching up, and some of those e-mails were saying, "disregard what I just sent you," so there wasn't as much as I thought there was.
ReplyDelete