Rocky's query to locate an autocrosser, only to find out he'd recently
passed away, was a sad reminder. During the 15 or so years I've been
managing various lists and web pages and other domains and such, it has
been a lot of work for me to keep up with list administration.
It is tedious, boring maintenence stuff for the most part, dealing
with backing up files, keeping the servers running, updating software,
pruning bad addresses from the lists, misdirected messages and such.
It is still worth the effort though, and the response during the
Team.Net fund drives assures me my efforts are not wasted. Maybe this
weekend I'll get some 'Thank You' emails out to those who contributed this
past April.
Over the course of the years I've been lucky that the the most
difficult task rarely crops up. It takes only a few keystrokes, a
fleeting moment out of my life, but it is one of the hardest things I
have to do as manager of the various lists. A surviving partner will
contact me and request that a name be removed from a list, as the
subscriber has passed away. I hate those messages. I'm not fond of death.
In truth, the most emotionally distressing incident required no effort
at all on my part. Joe DeLuca, the fellow who penned 'Raymond the Cat'
unsubscribed himself from a couple of lists a couple of days before he
boarded United Flight 93, Sept. 11, 2001.
mjb.
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