Role-based mailboxes

At work I get plenty of e-mail from people of whom I am but vaguely aware telling me that they are going on vacation but certain other people will cover for them and to just e-mail the role-based mailbox address. I neither know nor care about such details. Indeed, rotation of people among these jobs as people go on sick or maternity leave or whatever appears sufficiently frequent that I doubt I could keep track of them anyway.

If I want whatever these people provide I am content to e-mail the role-based mailbox and whoever's job it is can deal with my issue. If the problem is that people reply to personal addresses and ignore automated vacation responses then perhaps they will learn not to when resolution of their matters is often consequently delayed. I doubt that the solution is to ongoingly broadcast details of what is going on behind the curtain. Perhaps we could instead just expect people to e-mail the appropriate address for their issue.

Update: Gah, of course we get e-mailed reminders of coming vacation too, a forward of the original message telling us who will be monitoring the role-based addresses, as if it matters, because it is a general assumption here that even though we are in professional technical roles we are not able to hold on to an e-mail for long without losing it or, if need be, of simply adding a corresponding note to our institutional online calendar system.

Cheap transport

I often think about how I could live more cheaply. I had suspected that we could have been rather further along with practical electric cars and associated infrastructure given a little more government support over the years. Oddly, I had never thought about electric motorcycles. After all, motorcycles are generally cheaper to buy and run than cars.

It turns out that electric motorcycles do exist. Models like the Zero SR already look agreeably far along and I expect the state of the market to improve further. It seems like buying a laser printer: running costs make it well worth it overall. I like the idea of being able to travel to Dundee more cheaply then park in a smaller space.

My impression is that a significant factor in the injury rate of motorcyclists is the kind of person who is attracted to motorcycles in the first place: I am guessing that I am something of an outlier in that profile. However, I concede that my latest road collision, now more than a decade ago, might have been interesting on a motorcycle: while the other driver's insurer folded immediately given that I had done nothing worse than proceed ahead at a low speed within my lane only to be hit hard sideways as the other driver turned across the road without seeing me, not being the one technically at fault does not ameliorate physical injury. The risks thus give me pause but I am nonetheless somewhat attracted by the prospect of cheaper travel.