Spam E-mail

Gmail does a pretty good job of keeping spam away. I receive only 1 to 4 pieces of spam per day in any one of my accounts, and it's rare that they go to anything other than the spam folder. These accounts include one posted publicly online that anyone could write to and one I give out specifically "for spam" (you know, when the grocery store, etc., insists on an e-mail address).

By contrast, my work e-mail address is inundated with spam each day, to a point where sometimes I feel like the spam interferes with productivity (especially since, if I'm writing an e-mail at a given moment when new mail arrives, I have to click out of the program and then back in it in order to continue writing). In addition the spam filter seems ridiculously ineffective, this despite the fact that I often mark mail as "junk," which is supposed to help the system learn to recognize such mail. I'm not sure why the ineffectiveness is like so, but here's a typical week.

I say typical, but actually Tuesday and Wednesday of the week featured here were not. E-mail was down completely for much of the day both days; strangely, I didn't have as much spam waiting for me once the e-mail system was back up as I likely would have received had I been in my account.

The amount of spam hasn't always been this prolific. I had fewer junk e-mails when I first started. My years of being in my position have likely added to the amount of spam I get (as they have to other long-time employees). In addition, I've noticed rises and falls in the amount I receive. Right now, I'm at a high level; however, I've also seen times when these numbers dropped to half what they are.