piatkow - 9:52 am on Jun 29, 2011 (gmt 0)

Trouble is that email makes it easier to communicate and computers mean that businesses both small and large don't have the levels of clerical staff that they did 30 years ago.

I certainly don't have time to respond to every email. In my first office job in the early 70s every single customer letter (it was all letters then of course) had to have an acknowledgement in the post that night. That isn;t something you see anywhere these days.