In what may be yet another example of pointing out the obvious, researchers at Glasgow University and Paisley University surveyed office workers and found that a third of them are stressed out by e-mail – specifically, they feel a lot of pressure to respond to e-mails right away.  

Women are apparently more susceptible to this than men – although I do know a guy in Toronto who has his Crackberry surgically implanted, and will answer any e-mail within two minutes, no matter what time it is.  

E-mail can be a productivity killer because when you have to leave whatever you’re working on to attend to it, it can take a long time to get back into the groove again.  And apparently many of us underestimate just how intrusive it is:  half of the workers estimated that they checked their e-mail more than once an hour, and about 35 percent said once every fifteen minutes.  But the monitoring software installed by the researchers showed that it was more like 30 or 40 times an hour.  

Solutions:  put aside a time to deal with e-mail, stick to that religiously, and if you’re the boss, make sure your employees understand that they’re not going to get fired if they don’t answer e-mails within nanoseconds. Everyone will be a lot happier.

Read more at The Register.

A few companies I deal with have dropped email altogether for customer inquiries and questions. These are done the old fashioned way, by telephone only. Email addresses are not on the websites at all anymore.
If a prospective customer only wants a price or to know if an item is in stock, the question can be dealt with on the phone alot quicker. Also, it weeds out the people who have no intention of buying...they are unlikely to bother phoning.

GAWD how I hate email!!!!  It kills us, just like you Scott, have stated.  When I get those emails with the little exclamation marks on them, and the title with the ASAP, I tend to not bother looking at them.  I feel "pick up the phone dam you!!!  It will not kill you to press the 11 numbers and hell you get a quicker response!!!!"  So, eventually I do pick up the phone and ask... "What's up, now???"  Seems a whole lot easier and more efficient if you ask me.....  and yeah, nothing more annoying than sitting in yet "another" meeting with the cell phones beeping and singing and such, people texting and pretending they are OH SO IMPORTANT!!!  Give it up already, no one has died, we are not off the air, give it up.... It will be there when the meeting is done.  Another gripe of mine is when talking to the boss and he is at his computer and checking emails as well as his "CrackBerry"  For the LOVE OF GAWD!!!  It is the same dam thing....  

But hey , my rant is done I am tired after working all day long and into the evening, am tired now....  

You can book driver exams on line, report accidents, make appointments, etc but nowhere can you email ICBC for any information.  If what you need is not on their site, they will only accept phone calls or old fashioned snail mail....