Twelve-steps to curing e-mail addiction! ( Oh pls!!! LOL )

PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvania -- Alcoholics have one, and so do drug abusers. Now people addicted to e-mail also have a 12-step program designed to tackle their obsession.
An executive coach in Pennsylvania has devised a plan to teach people how to manage the electronic tool, which some users say can be as much an intrusive waste of time as it is fast-paced and efficient.
Developed for cases such as a golfer who checked his BlackBerry after every shot, and lost a potential client who wanted nothing to do with his obsession, Marsha Egan's plan taps into deepening concern that e-mail misuse can cost businesses millions of dollars in lost productivity.
"There is a crisis in corporate America, but a lot of CEOs don't know it," Egan said. "They haven't figured out how expensive it is."
One of Egan's clients cannot walk by a computer -- her own or anyone else's -- without checking for messages. Other people will not vacation anywhere they cannot connect to their e-mail systems. Some wait for e-mail and send themselves a message if one hasn't shown up in several minutes, Egan said.
The first of Egan's 12 steps is "admit that e-mail is managing you. Let go of your need to check e-mail every 10 minutes."
Other steps include "commit to keeping your inbox empty," "establish regular times to review your e-mail" and "deal immediately with any e-mail that can be handled in two minutes or less but create a file for mails that will take longer."
Egan says she hosts no 12-step meetings but is planning a monthly teleconference for "e-mailers anonymous."
Michelle Grace, an insurance agent in Lehighton, Pennsylvania, said she receives up to 60 messages a day and uses Egan's program to make it less time-consuming and less stressful.
"E-mail had me by the throat," she said. "When you can't find what you need, then it becomes a problem."
Now that her e-mail is transferred -- some manually and some automatically -- into files, Grace said she spends less time hunting for them.
On average, workers who receive an e-mail take four minutes to read it and recover from the interruption before they can resume working productively, Egan said.
She also recommends checking e-mail not more than three or four times a day.
Some employees resist the lure of e-mail during the regular workday, only to find themselves putting in extra hours at home to clear the backlog, she said. One of Egan's clients said he had 3,600 messages in his inbox.
Part of the problem is senders who copy messages too widely and are too vague in their subject lines, so recipients don't know what they need to open right away, Egan said.
For Grace, relief from her e-mail addiction means she is not checking her computer every five minutes.
She said she has let her colleagues know that if they need to reach her immediately, e-mail is not the way to do it.
"I told them, 'If you need me urgently, pick up the phone,'" she said.
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Following are the 12 steps of a plan devised by executive coach Marsha Egan in Pennsylvania to teach people how to manage their e-mail:

1. Admit that e-mail is managing you. Let go of your need to check e-mail every ten minutes.
2. Commit to keeping your inbox empty.
3. Create files where you can put inbox material that needs to be acted on.
4. Make broad headings for your filing system so that you have to spend less time looking for filed material.
5. Deal immediately with any e-mail that can be handled in two minutes or less but create a file for mails that will take longer.
6. Set a target date to empty your in box. Don't spend more than an hour at a time doing it.
7. Turn off automatic send/receive.
8. Establish regular times to review your e-mail.
9. Involve others in conquering your addiction.
10. Reduce the amount of e-mail you receive.
11. Save time by using only one subject per e-mail; delete extra comments from forwarded e-mail, and make the subject line detailed.
12. Celebrate taking a new approach to e-mail.

Senders of indecent electronic mail to land a place on sex register (You gotta read this crap!)

Amendment to sexual offences act now includes harassment via electronic communication

Members of the public sending emails or texts with sexual connotations could earn themselves a place on the sex offenders register under changes to existing laws.

The new amendments which came into effect this week will focus on schedule five of the Sexual Offences Act 2003, which prosecutes offences which are not primarily sexual in nature.
Under the new amendments any phone calls, text or voice messages that are seen as sexual harassment could result in a sexual offences prevention order (SOPO).
Anyone with a SOPO will also be automatically placed on the sex register which has been designed to monitor and control the behaviour and risk posed by said sex offenders.
However although this new change will bring electronic communication firmly into the Sexual Offences Act of 2003 it is not the first time people will be prosecuted for an electronic communication crime.
Under the Communications Act 2003 the improper use of a public email network is already forbidden and anyone sending a message that is "grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character" will be prosecuted according to the law.
So does that mean we all going to be on the register for sending sexual referenced communications to those who know us??
I'm one for protecting the ones at risk, but come on! How many of us have done it, sending sexual referenced messages like comments on Myspace?

Tips for Handling Telemarketers

Tips for Handling Telemarketers, something I love doing to them! lol
(1) Three little words: "Hold On please..."
Saying this, while putting down your phone and walking off (instead of hanging-up immediately) would make each telemarketing call so much more time-consuming that boiler room sales would grind to a halt. Then when you eventually hear the phone company's "beep-beep-beep" tone, you know it's time to go back and hang up your handset, which has efficiently completed its task. These three little words will help eliminate telephone soliciting.
(2) Silent Calls...
Do you ever get those annoying phone calls with no one on the other end? This is a telemarketing technique where a machine makes phone calls and records the time of day when a person answers the phone. This technique is used to determine the best time of day for a "real" sales person to call back and get someone at home. What you can do after answering, if you notice there is no one there, is to immediately start hitting your # button on the phone, 6 or 7 times, as quickly as possible. This confuses the machine that dialled the call and it kicks your number out of their system. Gosh, what a shame not to have your name in their system any longer !!!
(3) Junk Mail Help:
When you get "ads" enclosed with your phone or utility bill, return these "ads" with your payment. Let the sending companies throw their own junk mail away. When you get those "pre-approved" letters in the mail for everything from credit cards to 2nd mortgages and similar type junk, do not throw away the return envelope. Most of these come with postage-paid return envelopes, right? It costs them more than the regular 24p postage
"IF" and when they receive them back. It costs them nothing if you throw them away! The postage was around 29p before the last increase and it is according to the weight. In that case, why not get rid of some of your other junk mail and put it in their postage-paid return envelopes. For example; send an ad for your local chimney cleaner to American Express. Send a pizza coupon to Citibank. If you didn't get anything else that day, then just send them their blank application back! If you want to remain anonymous, just make sure your name isn't on anything you send them. You can even send the envelope back empty if you want to just to keep them guessing! It still costs them 24p.
The banks and credit card companies are currently getting a lot of their own junk back in the mail, but folks, we need to OVERWHELM them. Let's let them know what it's like to get lots of junk mail, and best of all they're paying for it...Twice!
Another thing the Royal Mail are doing now, is to stuff local adverts through your letterbox. I collect them and put them in their own Post Boxes. Good fun! Let's help keep our postal service busy since they are saying that e-mail is cutting into their business profits, and that's why they need to increase postage costs again. You get the idea?
If enough people follow these tips, it will work!

Another example of American Justice

Got this in an email & thought you would like to read it!

This is the ideal definition of true justice.

A Charlotte, NC, lawyer purchased a box of very rare and expensive cigars, then insured them against fire amongst other things.

Within a month of having smoked his entire stockpile of these great cigars and without yet having made even his first premium payment on the policy, the lawyer filed a claim against the insurance company.

In his claim, the lawyer stated the cigars were lost "in a series of small fires"

The insurance company refused to pay, citing the obvious reason, that the man had consumed the cigars in the normal fashion. Ther lawyer sued.....and won!

In delivering the ruling, the judge agreed with the insurance company that the claim was frivolous. The judge stated, nevertheless, that the lawyer held a policy from the company in which it had warranted that the cigars were insurable and also guaranteed that it would insure them against fire, without defining what is considered to be unacceptable fire, and was obligated to pay the claim. Rather than indure lenghthy and xostly appeal process, the insurance company accepted the ruling and paid $15.000 to the lawyer for the loss of the rare cigars lost in the "fires"

NOW FOR THE BEST PART

After the lawyer cashed the cheque, the insurance company had him arrested on 24 counts of ARSON' With his own insurance claim and testimony from the previous case being used against him, the lawyer was convicted of intentionally burning his insured property and was sentenced to 24 months jail and a $24.000 fine.

This is a true story and was the 1st place winner in the recent Criminal Lawyers Award Contest.

ONLY IN AMERICA! NO WONDER THE WORLD THINKS THEY NUTS!!!!

We are all Doomed!!!!

CANCER UPDATE FROM JOHN HOPKINS HOSPITAL , U S - PLEASE READ

Please circulate to all you know, Cancer update -- John Hopkins --

Cancer News from John Hopkins:

1. No plastic containers in micro.
2. No water bottles in freezer.
3. No plastic wrap in microwave.

Johns Hopkins has recently sent this out in its newsletters. This information is being circulated at Walter Reed Army Medical Center as well.
Dioxin chemicals causes cancer, especially breast cancer.
Dioxins are highly poisonous to the cells of our bodies. Don't freeze your plastic bottles with water in them as this releases dioxins from the plastic.
Recently, Dr. Edward Fujimoto, Wellness Program Manager at Castle Hospital , was on a TV program to explain this health hazard. He talked about dioxins and how bad they are for us.
He said that we should not be heating our food in the microwave using plastic containers.
This especially applies to foods that contain fat.
He said that the combination of fat, high heat, and plastics releases dioxin into the food and ultimately into the cells of the body.
Instead, he recommends using glass, such as Corning Ware, Pyrex or ceramic containers for heating food. You get the same results, only without the dioxin. So such things as TV dinners, instant ramen and soups, etc., should be removed from the container and heated in something else.
Paper isn't bad but you don't know what is in the paper. It's just safer to use tempered glass, Corning Ware, etc.
He reminded us that a while ago some of the fast food restaurants moved away from the foam containers to paper. The dioxin problem is one of the reasons.
Also, he pointed out that plastic wrap, such as Saran, is just as dangerous when placed over foods to be cooked in the microwave. As the food is nuked, the high heat causes poisonous toxins to actually melt out of the plastic wrap and drip into the food.
Cover food with a paper towel instead.

Oh well, guess we all should ban Microwave foods, as if!!!!