As an English major, I feel more ashamed than is perhaps necessary.

Regarding your other comments, there are many avenues with which to effectively, safely, and securely store important information electronically. I don’t know who in their right mind would allow employees to delete their own emails (though I wish I could delete a few), but in most places, an employee could delete a message from his/her own profile while the email is still stored on the work server.

I used to be all for the paperless office. Then I grew older, and I learned about traceability and shared memory. Preserving records is more than just covering your ass, although that’s important; it’s also about improving, learning from your mistakes.

I know, in principle, records can be preserved in electronic form. But in practice, that rarely happens. Even in offices where, you’d think, people can afford the very best systems and advice – it still turns out that people are allowed to, for instance, delete their own e-mails. Which is madness.