[13074] in APO-L
Re: E-mail
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Greg A Tapolow)
Thu Oct 26 09:25:18 1995
Date: Thu, 26 Oct 1995 09:18:23 -0400
Reply-To: Greg A Tapolow <gatst2+@PITT.EDU>
From: Greg A Tapolow <gatst2+@PITT.EDU>
To: Multiple recipients of list APO-L <APO-L@VM.CC.PURDUE.EDU>
In-Reply-To: <199510250324.XAA06150@post-ofc03.srv.cis.pitt.edu>
On Tue, 24 Oct 1995, Matthew Neimeyer wrote:
> My question is: what is everyones opinion on requiring brothers in the
> chapter to have and check that email account. (whether it's through school
> or not).
>
Hello to APO-L-
Many people who know me may be surprised at this, but I would
tend to reccomend against switching entirely to email communications.
Unless all you brothers are in the practice of checking their mail
routinely throughout the day, certain things may not be read at the
time the sender is expecting them to be received.
People tend to enjoy creating their own technophobia. If I didn't
get an announcement because it was emailed to me and I didn't check mail
that day, I can't be held responsible.
Finally, and this has caused no end of troubles for me in another
organization; Those black letters on a white screen carry very little
emotion with them. It is so easy to have the motivation behind words
lost. No matter how carefully and objectively they may be chosen, your
words will be read by someone who will interpret it their way, and, have
a copy to confront you with.
Now these are all worst case scenarios. You could very well avoid
all of it. Beta chapter passed around a list to the brothers asking how
they wanted to receive their copies of the minutes. This has worked out
rather successfully.
My other organization has established a policy that announcements
would be supplimented with email and distributions. But the only official
place you could rely on getting all the announcements was at the meetings.
Now don't get me wrong. I love the net. I'm a net-geek who checks
his email 2-10 times a day depending on my schedule. I have the view of
an inbox on my desk. I send gobs of mail a week and receive....some ;-)
I'd probably go nuts without a unix acct.
I guess the bottom line of this is to think about the idea: Is it
really a wise idea to enhance service and leadership at the possible cost
of personal friendship.
This is just my viewpoint and reflects no one elses :)
Flames and arguements gladly accepted
Greg A. Tapolow
Fellowship Chair for Beta Chapter's Philip H. Prince Pledge Class
------
Back in my day, we didn't have any of these fancy disclaimers. We blamed
our employers for our opinions, and they got sued for silly little
provocations, and they would fire us, and we would be sleeping out in the cold and
hungry, and we LIKED it that way
