Joey's Token Mechanism

Since Joey is working on quite a lot of issues, is responsible for several jobs and performs several different tasks he had to develop a way to deal with this situation efficiently. Many of his tasks are coordinated via electronic mail. A lot of jobs he has to do are triggered via electronic mail and results or acknowlegements are to be sent back via mail as well.

Tokens are a means of responsibility control. Who has the token has to do a part of the job. Afterwards, it's either finished or the token, though eventually modified, has to be sent to a second or third party.

Explanation

The concept about the use of a token was first invented by Willjin at IBM in 1972. This concept is used in commonly known Token Ring Networks, which were first announced publically in 1985 by IBM as well.

Back in 1998 Joey decided to use mail as token when he works on certain issues and requires coordination with other people. In such a case mail sent to him as well as mail which he sent to somebody else is considered a token. Joey willl only work on the issue when the token is in his current mailbox, undeleted. Whenever he has sent out a mail which is considered as a token, he stops working on this particular issue, deletes the referring mail, and will only continue to work on it when he has received another mail covering this issue, preferably from the person he has sent mail.

He can only work on the issue properly if the token (the mail) comes back to him, containing all information he requested. If the mail doesn't contain everything he requested, and even has the questions from him removed, there's a good chance that the task cannot be finished in time. Please try to avoid this.

Please understand that any task which Joey may work on will be swapped out until the token comes back. If somebody doesn't answer his mails or doesn't provide all information that he has requested, the protocol fails and thus the algorithm fails, which will lead in unfinished tasks.

If you want to work together with him, please read his mails carefully and provide all information which he has requested. Do not simply remove stuff and start a new mail, forgetting something he wanted to know. This would be anti-productive.

Warning

There is a very easy way to sabotage Joey's work, simply ignore his mails. The token would never come back to him and thus the task would stay swapped out, unfinished forever.