Did anyone else feel like they were on drugs as they watched the opening ceremonies for the Olympics last night? On a related note, did any of you spend just a little too much time trying to figure out how the back legs of the centaur worked?

New Jersey’s Governor, James McGreevey has been dogged by financial scandals for awhile. When I saw that he was resigning I assumed he was succumbing to the pressure… this is something quite different.

I just found out that I am going to get to see Bill Clinton deliver a speech on energy policy in September. I say that, not because you need to know but because the way in which it happened has got me thinking about technology and the way my life has changed over the last 10 or so years.

Yesterday, the law school emailed the entire student body at 10:46: am and essentially said:

First 50 law students to email us back get to attend a conference with Bill Clinton and former world leaders discussing Energy Policy. Please respond with your details no later than August 13, 2004.

The first thing that fascinated me was the reply by date. Who on earth really thinks it will take 4 days for 50 people to reply by email for a free invite to hear the former president speak. Especially at a law school?

At 11:06 they sent a second email that essentially said:

For the love of God! Please stop emailing. We have 50 students!

I checked my reply time… 11:48. “Not bad,” I thought, “but probably to slow to get an invite.”

I have come along way…

When I began college, we had email (the Internet… that was a different story). I had never used it before and it wasn’t really a part of my life. I remember my friends cussing me out because their emails to me would go unanswered for months. I always thought to my self, “Why don’t you pick up the phone and call?”

When I got to my first job at a PR firm in Washington, DC, I was an account coordinator. My job was to sit in a cubicle surrounded by the offices of the PR executives. I answered phones, routed calls, occasionally wrote a press release and otherwise did their bidding. On my first day, I thought things were going pretty slow. No one came out of their offices and asked me to do anything. Inbound calls came into the office, but none of the PR executives ever called to ask me to do anything. I was bored. At around 4:00pm an executive comes out of his office and says, “did you get that done for me?” I looked at him quizzically and said “get what done?” He looked at me in disbelief and asked slowly, “did you get my email?”

I quickly opened Lotus Notes and realized that people had been emailing me assignments and tasks all day. I was furious. Why didn’t they just stop by my desk? Why didn’t they pick up the phone. Everyone is so impersonal. That was what bothered me. It was impersonal. I quickly learned to check my email frequently… one sec… my email notification just chimed in… ok… where was I…

When I first started using email in college it was a way to keep in touch - like letters or phone calls. And I used it as infrequently as I wrote letters or called people on the phone. As I made the change over from social communication to work communication, I quickly came to wonder how on earth I would have survived the world of work sans email. With the number of assignments and tasks that I do on a daily basis, if I had to stop and chat each time I needed to communicate about a work issue, I would be… jobless.

The “Clinton Sweepstakes” yesterday made me realize just how ingrained email has become in my life. I was reading the message within seconds of its arrival, and replied with all of my contact info in just under 2 minutes. And I was reasonably afraid that 50 other law students would beat me to the punch.

I read an article on the train this morning about unpaid internships and the role that they have in separating the connected and the well to do (or well enough to do) from those who’s parents cannot afford to cover them while they work for free.

While I agree that unpaid internships create a thorny issue when it comes to class, I still haven’t formulated a coherent thought on how to solve the problem. While I ponder the solution, there is something I’d like to say.

Thank you mom and dad for letting me pursue opportunities whether they paid well or not.