Publish and Perish, part 7: Email

[Context read the previous part or start from the beginning. TW: bad amateur fiction!]

What a day, Gerald thought. What an absolutely un-friggin’-believable day.

Having called his parents, his sister, his department chair, and Paul and a couple of other friends, the next step of his reentry was to open his email.

Even under the best of circumstances he struggled to keep up with email, often checking it all the way until bedtime, when others might be curling up with a book.

Boy, I sure wish I had set up that I’m-on-sabbatical autoreply, he thought as he logged in. This could be ugly.

His laptop churned away, loading screen after screen of unread messages. The final count: 2,012 new ones. Oof.

What was it that Reverend Beth had wanted him to do? To notice his emotions without acting on them?

OK, he thought, I feel overwhelmed. Really and truly overwhelmed. Now what?

Gerald was sure he would feel better if he dipped his toe in the water tonight, scanning and deleting 100 or 200 messages, then tackling the rest tomorrow….

A 2,013th new message arrived: Advances in Parasite Biochemistry was scolding him for not meeting their 48-hour deadline for returning page proofs, and telling him that his article would now be bumped back to the issue after this next one, and that he should submit those proofs ASAP to avoid further delay.

Gerald snorted with incredulity.

F*** you, Advances in Parasite Biochemistry. F*** you and your arbitrary deadlines. F*** you for sending one automated message after another without considering that, at some point, you might need an actual human to assess the situation. F*** you for abusing us academics by exploiting our desperation to get things published.

He took a breath and closed his laptop. The other 2,012 messages would have to wait until tomorrow.

[Update: the story continues with part 8.]