# Your mailbox is not storage!
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-mailbox-is-not-storage/514754
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
**Created:** [October 22, 2009, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-mailbox-is-not-storage/514754 "2009-10-22T17:11:42Z")
**Posts on this page:** 17
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Brynda](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Brynda)
#### Post date: [October 22, 2009, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-mailbox-is-not-storage/514754/1 "2009-10-22T17:11:42Z")
Quit using your mailbox as a storage unit, co-worker! It is just a plastic box on the wall, and I am sick of seeing it full of stuff. Seriously, take that shit to your office or toss it. Don’t read it, and then put it back in the box.
And it wouldn’t kill you to bring in the mail occasionally.
Very mundane.
But annoying.
---
### Author:  [@Lobsang](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobsang)
#### Post date: [October 22, 2009, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-mailbox-is-not-storage/514754/2 "2009-10-22T17:13:02Z")
Yes it is.
And while we’re ranting at the people who Ork the cows. Leave teaspoons face down. that way you don’t have a sticky puddle of coffee on the spoon.
Stop leaving bits of coffee in the sugar bowl and bits of sugar in the coffee tin.
Stop using my desk as a place to put things once you’ve got bored fiddling with them.
---
### Author:  [@Brynda](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Brynda)
#### Post date: [October 22, 2009, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-mailbox-is-not-storage/514754/3 "2009-10-22T17:25:28Z")
I think some people just don’t think. Or care.
I am full of grrrrrr.
---
### Author:  [@Cagey\_Drifter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cagey_Drifter)
#### Post date: [October 22, 2009, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-mailbox-is-not-storage/514754/4 "2009-10-22T17:28:05Z")
Hey, I do this. But then, I guess I don’t really care who I offend by doing it.
---
### Author:  [@Textual\_Intercourse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Textual_Intercourse)
#### Post date: [October 22, 2009, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-mailbox-is-not-storage/514754/5 "2009-10-22T17:37:49Z")
> [@Lobsang](#):
>
> Yes it is.
> And while we’re ranting at the people who Ork the cows. Leave teaspoons face down. that way you don’t have a sticky puddle of coffee on the spoon.
>
> Stop leaving bits of coffee in the sugar bowl and bits of sugar in the coffee tin.
>
> Stop using my desk as a place to put things once you’ve got bored fiddling with them.
Good Christ, THANK YOU. A quick rinse to the teaspoon wouldn’t hurt either. Real quick, real easy, nothin’ to it. Also, if you’re going to use the teaspoon to retrieve sugar from the sugar receptacle…dry it first. This avoids clumpage. Nobody wants clumpage. Nobody.
---
### Author:  [@Textual\_Intercourse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Textual_Intercourse)
#### Post date: [October 22, 2009, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-mailbox-is-not-storage/514754/6 "2009-10-22T17:39:07Z")
> [@Cagey\_Drifter](#):
>
> Hey, I do this. But then, I guess I don’t really care who I offend by doing it.
The humanity…
---
### Author:  [@Epimetheus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Epimetheus)
#### Post date: [October 22, 2009, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-mailbox-is-not-storage/514754/7 "2009-10-22T17:42:46Z")
Yes, and from a non-physical standpoint, your work email is not a picture/video storage medium. Most companies make backups of all of your emails, and when you back up ALL of your email, you get email files that can easily reach 3-6GB. Multiply that by 200 employees and you can see where you putting your 4chan and lolcat pics in your email archive is an issue.
---
### Author:  [@Lobsang](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobsang)
#### Post date: [October 22, 2009, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-mailbox-is-not-storage/514754/8 "2009-10-22T18:42:21Z")
> [@Epimetheus](#):
>
> Yes, and from a non-physical standpoint, your work email is not a picture/video storage medium. Most companies make backups of all of your emails, and when you back up ALL of your email, you get email files that can easily reach 3-6GB. Multiply that by 200 employees and you can see where you putting your 4chan and lolcat pics in your email archive is an issue.
Until recently our company’s email server had a per-user limit of about 120meg.
I retain copies of emails going back 9 years. But I do it ‘wisely’.
Emails older than 2009 are stored in a seperate PST file. Occasionally I’l move a big chunk of emails from the main location to the PST file.
Emails with large attachments have the attachment saved somewhere, and then removed from the email.
---
### Author:  [@steadierfooting](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/steadierfooting)
#### Post date: [October 22, 2009, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-mailbox-is-not-storage/514754/9 "2009-10-22T20:02:44Z")
I’m guilty of the mailbox storage too – especially with paychecks. In order to deter hoarding my company sent out an email stating that left over paychecks will be held by the director of finance.
My translation: the director of finance will throw out all the paystubs for you.
Score! Saves me the trouble.
---
### Author:  [@filmore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/filmore)
#### Post date: [October 22, 2009, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-mailbox-is-not-storage/514754/10 "2009-10-22T20:22:42Z")
> [@Brynda](#):
>
> Quit using **your mailbox** as a storage unit, co-worker!
Is this mailbox only for her mail? Or for the whole office? If it’s just her own mail, then I seen nothing wrong with leaving her own mail in her own box for however long as she likes.
---
### Author:  [@Silver\_Tyger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Silver_Tyger)
#### Post date: [October 22, 2009, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-mailbox-is-not-storage/514754/11 "2009-10-22T21:05:14Z")
I had a coworker who saved all his emails, so when his email crashed and burned from the 9000 emails he had with attachments, he had to rebuild it all. That happened at least three times in the five years I worked there. No, he never backed up. He had no idea how to do it, despite the fact that I suggested it a couple of times.
Of course he was better than the guy who didn’t know how to add an attachment and would make me do it. :smack:
(I’ll admit I have some emails that are probably a year old that I haven’t taken care. But not very many. I’ve also used my draft folder as _temporary_ storage)
---
### Author:  [@Lobsang](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobsang)
#### Post date: [October 22, 2009, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-mailbox-is-not-storage/514754/12 "2009-10-22T21:26:33Z")
That reminds me. We’ve all forgotten to attach the attachment right?
Well one guy at my work sent SEVEN emails, six of them were emails apologising for forgetting the attachment in the previous email. The last one finally had the attachment
---
### Author:  [@SmellMyWort](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SmellMyWort)
#### Post date: [October 22, 2009, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-mailbox-is-not-storage/514754/13 "2009-10-22T21:51:09Z")
> [@filmore](#):
>
> Is this mailbox only for her mail? Or for the whole office? If it’s just her own mail, then I seen nothing wrong with leaving her own mail in her own box for however long as she likes.
If you’re the person delivering mail, what do you do when it gets full. Throw their crap on the floor? Deliver it to them personally since they are too good to pick it up themselves? The mailboxes at my work are 4x12 inch cubbies so it doesn’t take much to fill one up.
---
### Author:  [@Brynda](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Brynda)
#### Post date: [October 23, 2009, 2:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-mailbox-is-not-storage/514754/14 "2009-10-23T02:59:02Z")
It is her own mailbox, but it is only a slanted box file holder thingie stuck to the wall. I has fallen once because of too much stuff in it. Plus it is an eyesore in the kitchen/breakroom.
As long as we are adding other complaints, same cow-orker is always late. Always. Today I had to go ask some kids in the waiting room to be quiet. Not their fault or the mom’s fault, really. She wasn’t even in the building, and didn’t arrive until almost 20 minutes after their appointment time.
---
### Author:  [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)
#### Post date: [October 24, 2009, 6:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-mailbox-is-not-storage/514754/15 "2009-10-24T06:06:45Z")
But my Gmail holds 7 gigs. :(😃
---
### Author:  [@DMark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DMark)
#### Post date: [October 24, 2009, 8:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-mailbox-is-not-storage/514754/16 "2009-10-24T08:02:59Z")
> [@BigT](#):
>
> But my Gmail holds 7 gigs. :(😃
Exactly!
I teach at a college and ask all of my students to get a Gmail account. I tell them to send their files (Adobe Photoshop/Illustrator) to Gmail and they never have to worry about having their flash drive with them or losing it or whatever. They can upload and download forever, and rarely (if ever) have a file be too large to save.
---
### Author:  [@Crowbar\_of\_Irony\_3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crowbar_of_Irony_3)
#### Post date: [October 24, 2009, 9:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-mailbox-is-not-storage/514754/17 "2009-10-24T09:44:03Z")
I forgotten when it is the last time I really check, but I never delete mails from my yahoo/gmail for over 5 years. And yahoo mail has a really wicked search function.