Since this COVID "thingy" started, people want to know my e-mail address
all the time. Going to the dentist? They'll ask for my e-mail address ...
The thing is, I don't have one e-mail address. I have hundreds. Every
time I register for a new service, I create a new address just for that
service. When it gets spam, I delete this single address. This is a very
effective way to reduce spam.
But now ... my dentist asks for my e-mail address. And I'm standing
there like: "Uh, uhhhh, uh. Uhm. No." Not really because I don't want to
give it to them, but because I have not yet created a new address for
them. So I'm stumped. Do I explain my e-mail system to them now? Hardly.
Do I give them some address that does not yet exist, so it'll bounce if
they send something before I get home? Not good, either.
I mean, it's not really necessary for my dentist to know my e-mail
address. It works just fine without that. But if it makes their life a
little bit easier if they can just send an e-mail instead of calling me
(which takes more time, I might not be home, whatever), then why not?
It's also better for *me*, because I can read that e-mail again later. A
phone call, on the other hand, is super annoying: If I forget to write
something down, then this information is gone. E-mail is good and it's
good that it's being used more often.
At first, I thought: "I should invert my system." Instead of creating a
new address for each purpose, I could just create one catchall mailbox
and then block the addresses which get spam.
Downside is, I don't really know which addresses I gave to people.
That's not good. It makes things like migrating to another e-mail
service much harder.
So, now ... I do both. I created a catchall mailbox, so next time my
dentist or the florist or whoever asks for my e-mail address, I can just
give them some address (which will work) and when I get home, I create
it as a proper mailbox.
Let's see how that works.
And all that just because of my dentist ... I never expected them to ask
for that. Well, things change.
