My mail server didn't, and I had several hundred messages waiting for me, despite the fact that I'd told almost everyone that I'd be out of town and away from e-mail. Sometimes there were three or four messages from the sender with the same subject. It turns out that they were copies of the same messages. You see, people thought that since I hadn't responded, the message hadn't arrived. E-mail is like an answering machine, all right.
Messages pile up, and up, and up.
It took a few hours to read and respond to all the mail. After it was all done, I resolved that I would no longer be even the slightest bit annoyed when people didn't reply to my messages immediately. Some really popular columnists don't, and after experiencing an avalanche of e-mail firsthand, I can certainly understand their reasoning. As long as I check it daily, it doesn't get overwhelming, and I can take pride in answering all my mail in a timely fashion. Technology was supposed to be a great liberator and in many ways, it has been.