Messed up at work. Feel sick

[User292]

This might not sound like a big deal but it is and I’m STUPID!!! I’m literally so stupid for not realising. Everything that I do is largely via email. I send and receive lots of emails daily, i have been at the company for a year and so I’ve got a years worth of emails on my laptop (plus a little more from a few months before I started)

all last week I was getting notifications to say my mailbox is almost full. I was deleting emails that I don’t need to keep but it wasn’t really doing anything, and today I got a notification that said I can’t send or receive any new emails because my inbox is full. I decided, all of the very old stuff can go because I’ve already dealt with it and it’s done. I cleared out all of the emails from June 2023 to June 2024. But my inbox was still full. The notification said to empty my deleted items folder. So I did. Inbox still full. So at this point I messaged my manager and said I don’t know what’s happening with my emails, it’s saying inbox full despite me deleting. He replied saying DO NOT delete any emails!! As we need a trail as backup and evidence of conversations and approvals for things etc. I haven’t replied because I’m hyperventilating. I have just deleted a years worth of emails. I feel really sick why did I do that! I thought I had to and there was no other way around it because it was saying I can’t send or receive any new emails so what else was I supposed to do?! He said there is an archive folder to put them in to clear space but I didn’t know 😢

Not sure what this post is for but needed to just say AHHHHHHHHHH!!!!

I agree! I want to sort it out. I knew not to delete from the past few months because for example sometimes my manager will come to me and say “where are we at with this? Send me an update” and I can go back to my emails and have a look and say “I’ve been waiting on this since April, I followed up again twice in may and then weekly since then” and I have an email trail to back myself up as proof. But once tasks or projects are completed and over and done with and have been for 12 months.. what’s the point in keeping the emails! I guess it’s so that if anything came up in the future we always have evidence just in case. But surely I can’t just keep it all in an archived folder? What if I’m there for 6 years or more? Am I just going to have 6 years worth of emails in an archive folder?! I’m going to have a talk with my manager about it

Defo. You might also get dibs on the new hardware (I did 😁)

Fucking brilliant. 😊

Absolutely this.

I ended up marrying my IT saviour!

Emails I delete out of my inbox are still in mimecast. Nothing is truly ever deleted at work. Hopefully you have a similar system. If not, it’s a fuck up but it’s not really your fault they’ve not got the right software.

I think they really should have clarified at some point when you took the job, but good that it’s all sorted!

Glad you got the emails back! Oddly I had a reverse of this today where I’ve been sorting out a shared inbox which has got out of control (I’m new to the company) and a senior manager asked why I was bothering filing everything into a ‘completed’ folder when I could just delete it all 🙃

❤️ this @FloatyBoaty !

I'm sure your company will have cloud storage, all your emails will be there.🥰

I search for key words like unsubscribe, then all the junk emails show up! Makes for an easy delete.

YOU now don’t try to do anything. Hand the problem over to IT.

I've restored my yahoo many a time

Also, there is a spam click phishing email going around work places which says your mailbox is full and click here to delete, or something like that. One of my colleagues fell for it, clicked it, and all our systems got hacked. So, not to worry you, but just be aware and think twice on everything before acting.

In more than one job, I've been known as the problem child regards IT but having the ICT on side definitely helped.
I used to bring them chocolate for helping me lol.