So I spent a day hacking into my co-workers' e-mail (the feds call it a crime; I call it visual eavesdropping) to assess the state of our connection.
I got an eyeful.
I started with our venerable political columnist, John Baer. The subject line of his e-mail to Daily News fitness columnist Kimberly Garrison read: "URGENT! READ THIS!"
"Kim," he wrote, "I've run the numbers on that chain of kick-boxing studios you want me to invest in. They look good, so count me in. But if I were you, I'd cross Ronnie off your list of potential backers. I hear her finances are a train-wreck. Try Stu Bykofsky instead. He snorkels in the islands every year. I'll bet he's loaded."
But Stu wasn't interested, he told Kim in a resulting e-mail. He planned to open a dog spa when he retired, so his dollars were spoken for.
"I'm going to give Ronnie some free coupons, so we can groom her animals," Stu wrote. "Those poor hounds are the scruffiest mutts I've ever seen."
I knew people were talking about me here.
Speaking of talk, Tattle columnist Howard Gensler started what I am sure he thought was a hilarious back-and-forth with TV critic Ellen Gray and columnist Jenice Armstrong about whether American Idol fans had delusions of their own grandeur.
"Well," Ellen wrote at 2:31 p.m., "I know that Ronnie is a big fan, so that tells us something, right?"
"LOL!" wrote Jenice at 2:32.
"Who's Ronnie?" lobbed Howard at 2:33. "Ha-ha!"
Ha-ha, yourself, Ha-Ha-Howie.
Surely, I thought, snooping through hundreds of newsroom e-mails, someone wrote helpful things about me? So I was gratified that Jill Porter sent an e-mail that acknowledged the crackerjack job I was doing in collecting money for a departing editor's going-away gift.
