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You made the choice last night. It was 5:45 and your turn to pick up the kids from day care. You’d spent the morning in a series of meetings, covering all those crises big and small that inevitably land on the desk of the chief of staff to the mayor of Zenith City. After lunch you did get a chance to scan your e-mails, checking the subject line for items that seemed to demand immediate attention. Then you devoted the entire afternoon to finally resolving the effort of your parks commissioner, Tanisha Foushee, to get rid of that obnoxious goof-off, Alfred Bell, by putting him on permanent disability.

But then, at 5:45, you had to choose: Go through all of the day’s e-mails? Or pick up the kids? You chose the kids. Smart move.

Except...except now, the next morning, it doesn’t feel quite so smart. For there, in your e-mail in-box, buried among all of the proclamations and invitations and requests for mayoral appearances is an almost casual note that Darrell Beck, your school superintendent, had sent you at 8 o’clock the previous morning: “We have finalized our agreement with ZC Distributors to put its vending machines in every school in the city and new scoreboards saying ‘ZC Distributors Loves ZC’s Kids’ in every gym and playing field. ZC Distributors pays for the installation, and the schools get 50 percent of the profits. The press release will go out by broadcast fax and e-mail tonight. The press conference will be tomorrow afternoon. So, if you have any objections, please let me know by close of business today.”

Any objections? Of course you have objections. And even more important, the mayor has objections (which is why you have objections). Should Zenith City be in the business of selling sugar to its schoolchildren? Sure, the revenue will help cover some of the school department’s deficit. But the mayor has been getting pressure from the Good Government League. In fact, at a meeting with GGL’s executive committee last month, she implied that she wouldn’t let the school department do it.

In a quick phone call to Beck, you get him to cancel the press conference. He doesn’t like it. Now Beck also has to issue a new press release, saying that due to “some unexpected complications” the agreement won’t be signed today. And he has to call Ron Lowe, the president of ZC Distributors, with the embarrassing news. “Come on,” he complains. “I sent you the e-mail. You didn’t get back to me. And now you’re turning me into a public idiot.” For whether or not the mayor eventually approves the deal with ZC Distributors, Beck can’t come out of this fiasco looking good. And he’s going to blame it all on you.

This, of course, isn’t the first time department heads have abused their e-mail access to you. In fact, in some ways, the current mess is a minor one. It isn’t going to look good in the papers, but at least you got an opportunity to kill it before the mayor was blindsided by an unanticipated press question.

Thus, the tyranny of e-mail lives. Sometimes the most important e-mails come in unassuming packages. People pretend to keep you up-to-date on some important development, but the e-mail doesn’t contain the information you really need. Yet when you criticize offending department heads, they grumble: “But I sent you an e-mail on that.”

Moreover, your subordinates have discovered that they don’t have to make an appointment to get a decision from you. They can just send you an e-mail. What could be easier? Indeed, too many city officials who report to you have discovered that they no longer have to make any decisions. Instead, they force you to make them.

“Boss toss” has always been a favorite sport of Zenith City’s managers. But e-mail makes it easier for them to play the game — much easier. They put an innocuous looking phrase in the subject line, pound the decision options into the keyboard, and expect instant gratification. By bumping the decision up to your desk, they evade responsibility. And if you don’t respond by their deadline, it’s your fault, not theirs. It’s brilliant — from their perspective.

From your perspective, their responsibility-avoidance strategy is killing. First of all, the e-mail never contains the really essential poop — the subtle tidbits that help you sniff out trouble. That’s why you spend your days in meetings. It’s the face-to-face interaction — the body-language in response to a seemingly innocuous question — that signals trouble and motivates you to probe further. In an e-mail, however, the options are laid out antiseptically. Usually there are three of them: the outrageously expensive option; the silly, symbolic-gesture option; and the one that they want you to choose.

Once, again, you’ve been set up. The consequence of all of this is clear: You need to get Zenith City’s decision-making process back under control.

For Bob Behn’s approach to this month’s public management dilemma — or to post your own ideas — click here.