5 Things I Learned From the Great Telus Email Crash of 2019

As I write this, Telus has still not resolved its email issues after one entire week of trouble. Thankfully, I don’t depend on it for much of my writing business. Every once in a while, I’ll receive notification that money’s been paid by Amazon or D2D, but otherwise most of my emails are blogs and newsletters. A small percentage of emails are from family, though they can text or phone anytime. The rest are review requests or writing event notifications. Of course, another small percentage is spam.

So, I’m looking on the positive side of the great Telus crash, and have learned a few things:

1. Patience really is a virtue. I can’t control anyone’s inability to fix technical problems, so I’m not losing sleep over it, although I feel terrible for those whose businesses depend on it Telus’s email.

2. I’m not nearly as dependent on emails as I thought I was. I’m far more dependent on the net in general, and my phone, or even my car. Thankfully, they’re working just fine.

3. I have a gmail account, which I’ll start using more often. This one sends emails to my phone, so I’ll get them quicker. Not that I want to read blogs and newsletters on a tiny screen, but if someone’s trying to get hold of me, I’ll respond faster through gmail.

4. Telus’s mess allowed me to catch up on all the blogs and newsletters that regularly fill my inbox.

5. I’m getting more editing and organizing done.

Because I follow a lot of blogs, it usually takes me a whole week to read them all, and even then I skim quickly or skip the topics that don’t resonate. This week, I took the time to read each one carefully, and even commented on several.

Since I’m spending less time reading newsletters, I’m spending more time editing and organizing files and articles into binders that I’ve been talking about doing. Yay! So, it’s not all bad. Crap happens, but I’m finding ways to make the best of it.