The joys of a common gmail account name

I often get misaddressed email sent to my gmail account. This is kind of strange, because "Silverman" is not a terribly common name, but there must be numerous people who just assume that the Mike, Maurice, Mark, Mindy, or Mel Silverman they are trying to reach must, of course, have msilverman as their gmail account name. These are not misaddressed or random spam attempts, or mailing lists...they are personal emails from random strangers.

As such I get a weird variety of misaddressed emails. Often they are real estate deals; I have heard lots of tips about great condos in Brooklyn and office space in Hoboken. A lot of the emails are academic; for months I kept getting plaintive emails about getting my feedback on a paper some professor was writing. The best in this vein was a letter addressed to "Professor Silverman" begging for an extension on an overdue term paper. Of course, I also get plenty of random family photos and "interpersonal" type emails...which always surprises me. I mean, it's one thing for a real estate agent to not know an email, but if you are writing "Cousin Mickey" don't you think you'd at least bother to look up his real email address?

None of these are as good as the email I got this past Spring from Lee MacPhail, director of Scouting for the Baltimore Orioles, containing the complete Orioles scouting organization plans for the 2009 season. Apparently, it hasn't helped, as the Orioles are mired in last place as of this writing.

When I receive one of these emails, and it looks important, I am polite and write the person to let them know they have the wrong man, although I have been tempted with some of the real estate folks to reply with something to the effect of "That property sounds awesome, put me down for it, I don't care what it costs!"

Please, everyone, check the email address of the person you are sending mail to, because it might not be who you expect!