Why Your E-Mail May Never Arrive After All
http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/pubs/spectrum/0401/speakli.html

Li, Ambrose
IEEE Spectrum
2001

Abstract:

Robert Lucky's view of excuses useful for fending off the e-mail deluge may not all belong to what he termed a 'passing, satirical dream' [IEEE Spectrum, January, p. 162]. As he put it, 'When someone asks, 'Did you see my urgent e-mail?' you can't say no, because it obviously got to you.' I have been trying to point out the error in this ever since I began to understand, more or less, the workings of Internet e-mail. Four years of managing corporate e-mail have shown me that the excuses are indeed plausible and do occur in nature.