To celebrate Science Week bloggers are being invited to talk about the effect that science has had in their lives through a range of topics – each day the organisers will reward the best post with a Nintendo Wii console. This post is one of my entries to the competition.
“Q2 – Which invention has helped you most with your working life?”
It’s a simple, and probably obvious, answer for me but the single most advantageous invention for me in my working life has to be email.
My career revolves around email. I often make first contact with someone for an article via email. I normally pitch an article to an editor via email. More often than not I arrange an interview via email. As a freelancer I always submit copy via email. Frankly I hardly use email socially – text or phone would be my main mode of communication there – but for work it’s vital.
If I didn’t have email I’d still be able to pitch articles, contact interviewees and so on but it would be just that little bit harder and submitting copy would be a total pain (telegram? Courier? Pigeon?!).
Other inventions are extremely important to me too (obviously email wouldn’t be possible without the internet and the computer) but none are quite as critical as email. If I didn’t have a mobile phone it would be a pain but not the end of the world – same would apply if I didn’t have a laptop or a dictaphone.
So email it is – I shiver when I consider life without it.