Fun with email

One more note for the day - looks like I won't have an actual editor appointment in Atlanta at conference. The one I was scheduled to meet with had to cancel her trip altogether, and all her appointments had to be dropped.

I've got backup plans to meet and talk with the editor I really want to be with (same publishing house), so I really think it's going to be ok. I'll let you know how my super-stealthy-approach works after the trip ;)
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I had a short email pop up this afternoon that made me snicker.

For quite some time now I have been receiving emails intended to be sent to you that were inappropriately addressed. Please send out an email to your entire contact list indicating that your proper email address is
(my email address). Even some of your online shopping purchases have sent me billing information and spam email as a result, which is indicative of you mistyping your email address yourself. Please correct this on your side.

Thank you,
(person-with-a-similiar-email-address)

Do you ever get email clearly not addressed to you? What do you do with it? This person was able to track me down because my true email address was in the previous conversation part of the email (gmail is so nice to keep track of it all nice and neat). And really, I was glad that he did - this was information that was timely and needed a quick response.

I emailed the three other people involved in the email conversation and asked them to check their address books, then emailed the person-with-a-similiar-email-address letting him know that I appreciated his forwarding the email, and would try to keep my contacts from bothering him in the future.

Ten minutes later he emailed an apology for the bit about my shopping habits and typos - adding that there is of course yet another ksteele who he is getting spam for. And then he forwarded me some more of my email.

So I thanked him again, but I was starting to laugh by now. I've often muttered about having to add a number at the end of my email address, instead of just my having my initial and name. Now I see the other side of the coin This poor guy. was the first person with a name like mine to register his email address at gmail - yay! But for the rest of his life he's going to be getting quite a collection of spam.

And somewhere out there is a similiar person at AOL, Bellsouth, and a few other sites where I've put a number after my name. Next time I have to become a numbered name, I won't mutter so much about the choices. It could be worse - I could be wading through the spam of every number that comes after me.