Funny story

[misslynn]

One of my Directors called me on Saturday, he needed a copy of a flight itinerary for a trip he took about 2 years ago (long story).  He called the airline and spent an hour talking to people only to discover that they can't provide any information from more than one year ago.

He finally got fed up with them and called me, I pulled up my files and forwarded him the itinerary ... took me about 30 seconds.

He's called me twice this week to tell me thank you and how he couldn't believe how quickly I was able to find the itin!  It's moments like these that make this job fun.

[gee4]

Lucky you had it.  I clear out paperwork and emails quite regularly.

Why on earth did he need something from 2 years ago?

[misslynn]

No, there was nothing lucky about it, I keep all records on file. I have every travel itinerary I've ever booked for my boss and I've worked with him almost 5 years.  This Director I've worked with for about 3 years.  I keep everything, you just never know when you'll need it.

Anyway, as to the 'why', he happened to get into a car accident on the way to the airport that day and is still dealing with a mess of a lawsuit.  For some reason the lawyers wanted to see his flight itinerary.

[Atlanta Z3]

I'm with you MissLynn - I don't delete much of anything in my email, including sent items.  Files are also kept - but I'm in legal so we keep everything.
Congrats on being so organized.

[Katie G]

A few months ago, I had to pull an email from 2005 to prove that something was agreed upon when one of the parties claimed knowing nothing about it.  I think said party was quite disappointed when I produced the email and there it was in black and white.  

[peaches2160]

I have an Hr background and was trained to keep everything.  Only recently have I started purging E-mail files from 3 yrs ago and beyond.  Only keeping things for a 2 year stretch, unless I have it in a file in my e-mail.  That stays forever unless I delete the file.  It has to be a project or something long done before I delete.  I did shock our legal dept. a few years ago when they came to me about a huge contract that had been signed by our former President and CEO.  He had committed the co. to something for 10 yrs, 7 yrs after his retirement.  To make a long story short, They were grateful I still had the documentation.