When I began working, I did my best to clean out my email inbox at work before I left the office on Friday afternoons. I enjoyed this ritual of mine because it was cathartic knowing that I had completed my tasks for the week. When I arrived on Monday mornings, I knew that whatever emails were waiting for me were new news or actions that needed to be addressed during the coming week. It was a system that allowed me to keep track of everything so I could manage my work. I wouldn't delete the email until I had completed the project. It was a good system, and it worked well.

Like the Right Honourable Sir Joseph Porter, K.C.B. (First Lord of the Admiralty), I started right at the bottom of the rung. While I did not polish up any handles, I did begin my professional career as a temporary employee. And just like Sir Joseph, I applied myself and moved from temp to secretary to legislative affairs specialist to public affairs specialist. So it seems my system must have worked. I heeded Sir Joseph's system of how to rise to the top:

Now landsmen all, whoever you may be,
If you want to rise to the top of the tree,
If your soul isn't fettered to an office stool,
Be careful to be guided by this golden rule.
. . .
Stick close to your desks and never go to sea,
And you all may be rulers of the Queen's Navee!

Unfortunately, as I have accumulated more responsibility with each promotion, so too have I accumulated more emails. Today, I am no longer able to leave on a Friday on time, let alone with an empty inbox. I still do my best to delete emails only when the task is completed, but as my tasks have become more complex and long-term, emails sit in my inbox for longer periods of time than when I was still a secretary. Also, with greater responsibility comes more email. In my current position, I'm inundated daily with hundreds of emails that I've been cc:ed on—that is, emails that aren't even important to me, but that others feel that I should be privy to. In all, I average in the hundreds daily.

I do my best to keep up with them. I try to read as much as I can so that I'm current on the goings-on of NASA, but often it's overwhelming. It's hard enough just to keep track of the emails I have to read, let alone the ones I want to read. Sometimes the important ones seem to get lost in the shuffle with all the junk that I receive. And my system does help, but with so many emails flooding in, it's impossible to maintain this system to the level I would like.

As such, I feel that I need a new system. One that will help me even better than the previous one. And I think I found it. I call it the "Leftovers in the Freezer" system. When I make food, I feel guilty throwing it away. I paid for the ingredients. I slaved over the stove (or oven) to make said food. I can't just throw the leftovers away. So, I place them in a storage container and stick them in the freezer. Every few months, I go into the icebox and pull out the leftovers that have been sitting there long enough to become inedible. It's amazing how easy and guilt-free it is to trash freezer-burnt food. So too, with my "Leftovers in the Freezer" system, it is very easy to get rid of emails. All you have to do is just let the emails sit long enough to become obsolete. At that point, feel free to delete them without reading them. After all, they are now out-of-date and inconsequential.

I received this email on my work account:

I'm writing this with tears in my eyes,I and my family came down here to London,United Kingdom for a short vacation unfortunately we got mugged at the park of the hotel where we stayed,all cash,wallet,credit card and cell were stolen off us,but luckily for us we still have our passport back in our hotel room.

We've been to the embassy and the Police here but they're not helping issues at all and our flight is leaving in few hours from now but we're having problems settling our hotel bills and the hotel manager won't let us leave until we settle the bills,We're freak out at the moment.

It's not the first time I've received this very email. What makes today different is that it was sent from my personal account. It seems my Yahoo account has been "compromised." Not only that, but I couldn't access my account this morning because these bastards changed my password and created new security questions that I didn't have the answers to. In the end, I was able to change my password and access my account.

I had the best of intentions to send an email to everyone on my contact list to let them know it was crap, and they should ignore it. But to my horror, my address book was blank! So, now I am waiting for Yahoo to reset my address book, while all the while friends and family think that I'm freaking out in London!

Now that I'm a bit calmer (only mad, not steamin' mad!) I reread the email. WTF?? OK, I can understand if it said that I couldn't pay the bill, so please send money. But it doesn't; it just says "we're freak out" over this situation. Why go to the trouble of hacking into my account and tell this sad story just to end it there? It has to be illegal to hack into my account and send a fraudulent email, right? So go the extra step and ask for money!

The number of people who contacted me about the email, and the outpouring of support they've shown, pleasantly surprised me. People I haven't spoken with for months or years have texted, emailed, and called to make sure I'm OK. That really makes me feel good; it's nice to know I have so many people who are concerned for my well-being. I don't want to criticize or belittle those who were genuinely concerned for my welfare, but to be honest, I'm surprised so many people actually thought it was real. Even ignoring those who thought it was spam, but wanted to be sure, still leaves a goodly amount who offered advice or suggestions of what to do.

I'm still a little confused that anyone would think this was really from me given the grammatical errors, and the odd writing (it sounds like they used Google translate). Who says, "I and my family came down here to London,United Kingdom"? Certainly not I. I would say, "My family and I," and I wouldn't say "came down here to" since London is actually across. While London is in fact in the United Kingdom, Americans typically say, "London" or "London, England." How can the hotel manager prevent us from leaving? As anyone who's stayed in a hotel knows, you need to give credit card information at check-in. If any issues with the card arose, it would happen when you got there, not when you're leaving. Anyone who knows me should know I would never, ever write an email that begins " I'm writing this with tears in my eyes." That is just too melodramatic for me! Finally, no American says, "We're freak out"; it's always "freaked out."

I'm seriously freak out that someone has commandeered my Yahoo account (and my Facebook account—but no damage there). I feel violated and used and angry!