Matthew Robinson

I sent and received 102 text messages today.  Total talk time, from my first phone call at 7:14 a.m. until my last at 11:52 p.m.: 72 minutes (and that was just on my cell).  89.  That’s the number of emails the made it to three different accounts I have (personal, TCC, and Well) on this Friday.  27 more messages ended up in spam.

Email is a necessity in my life.  I chair a math department at a community college, straddling administrative and teaching duties.  I have x number of students a semester who all need replies and forwards and copied Blackboard announcements, and I oversee the activities of full time faculty and have management responsibility for scores of adjuncts who report to me as I report to my higher ups.  If my position at The Well was likened to one in the business world, I’d probably be pegged as the COO of a growing non-profit, without central offices, or really any other administrative staff.  Welcome to my world of virtual communication…

I look at Gmail and Outlook more than I care to, but I know of no other way.  I’ve been using email for a long time.  My first email address ended in @prodigy.net.  And if I could teach a class on email it would include the following topics.  I’m no expert, and I don’t practice what follows all the time, but you’d help make my life easier if you did!

• Unless you’re planning a party, don’t use reply all.  Reply DIRECT unless absolutely necessary.  We don’t usually care or need to know about what you want to push out.
• My blood boils over emails that I’ve sent that are replied to with extra cc’s…if I intended to let someone else in on our conversation, I would have.  You think you’re pulling a power play, when the real power players, well, they don’t usually care.
• I expect replies.  “Thanks.”  “Got it.”  “Sounds great.”  And I rarely ever get them.  I have a friend that writes “please text or reply with confirmation”  I have another that embeds words or phrases or catchy slogans in emails and gives away prizes at meetings to those who caught the “hidden did-you-really-read-this” text.  I have another friend who writes in the subject line only “Please Reply” if a response is expected (and 95% of their email subject lines are these two words.)  I think all of these are over kill.  Common courtesy, to me, would dictate a semi-formal acknowledgment.  Especially if I saved you a phone call or meeting.  Let me know that you now know!
• The previous bullet can be ignored with chain messages or emails that made you rofl and that you think will make me lol.  These hardly ever deserve replies.
• My favorite college students are the ones who write back to whole class announcements.  “Thanks Doc, hope you’re doing great this week, too” or “Robinson–I appreciate the recap and extra info.”  I may have gotten 12 of these in 5 years of teaching at the college level.  And I love them.
• Don’t send an email out to “everyone” with generalizations when you should communicate your issues with just an individual.  You’re taken less seriously, and it creates divisiveness.  Not between the “everyones.”  But between you and the individual.  If you’re going to call out, call out.
• You better be careful who you bcc to.  I’ve meant to bcc someone and they were actually cc’d, and the s$&t storm that ensued was much more than I ever desired to bargain with.
• Encouragement is not a general message to a mass audience.  If sending to a mass audience, individuals should be singled out and applauded.
• I triage my emails.  And I do pride myself on quick replies.  By days end, almost everything is responded to.  Some emails in my life are deemed 4, 8, 12 or 24 emails.  These are the emails when my reply needs to wait at least that long in terms of hours, depending on the severity of my diversion from calm, cool, and collected.  Wait.  Always wait to hit send.  You’ll have a lot less making up you’ll have to do.
• If you really want me to digest info in an email, don’t write paragraphs that are longer than four sentences.
• And, if I have to scroll down to read your entire message, it’s entirely too long.  I probably stopped reading-to-comprehend at sentence five.
• Email in Heaven will run on the Gmail platform.  If you’re not on it, get on it.  I cringe when I write to @hotmail.com address still in 2010.

This is my friend Luke.

He’s 2 years old.

Luke and I get along pretty well nowadays.

But it’s taken some time.

Go back 10 months or so, and when I walked in a room, Luke would scream.

Like, at…  me.

Luke wasn’t a fan.

But I relentlessly pursued this kid.

I didn’t give up.

And now he’s my buddy.

I think he likes me now.

Maybe even if it’s just a little.

Tonight at my small group,

Scott lead us talking about faith.

“If I had more faith, I’d ______”

Fill in the blank.

Ouch.

Is it that you can’t?  Or you won’t?

(Chew on that…)

I gave little Luke something to chew on today.

I gave him his first taste of pizza.

And a Capri Sun.

(Jeremy and Beth are going to hate me).

And because I gave it to him,

Luke ate it.

(Okay, let’s be honest, he devoured it).

No questions asked.

No hesitation.

He.  ate.  it.

I’m thinking about Luke today.

About what “like a child” means.

Thanks, Luke.

You’re teaching this teacher a thing or two.

Whether you know it or not.

Lila Rose Simmons arrived last night.  I can’t wait to meet her.  Congrats to Scott and Jen!

My blog roll is back working.  It didn’t work.  And then I lost all of the links.  And now I think I fixed it.  Jovanna can get her number one source for readership back now.  Just don’t look at her post today. It’s über gross.

If you haven’t been the one who’s spent two and a half years working on a project, and you just now decide that you don’t like it, you should probably just keep your mouth shut in a meeting where those of us who have been working on it are presenting.

I found this song on someone’s facebook page and love it.  I don’t know who this guy is.  But he’s great.

This Sunday’s going to be a busy one.  Can’t wait for The Well and Gone Part 2!

I can’t deal with the Tallahassee heat.  This is the ninth summer I’ve been in this city.  And it’s disgusting.

I’m thinking about throwing my hat in the ring and running for President.  Robinson ‘09.  Any takers?