I do a lot of short term, temporary work. I had an interview with a company awhile ago. They decided to "hire" me and said I would be getting a lot of work. For the several months I received no work but still received all their emails. My manager changed several times (as I know from the emails I had been receiving). Some of the emails were very long, and technically speaking since I wasn't receiving any work couldn't possibly apply to me. As such, I started skimming them over or ignoring them completely.
Recently I started getting work. When I asked my current manager a question, he replied asking me if I had received a certain email from someone several months ago. I misspoke and said I was receiving a lot of emails and wasn't getting paid to read them. (this was rude of me but I asked the manager a question that really was his responsibility to know)
My point is, I had been receiving 100s of emails and since I wasn't getting any shifts I wasn't getting paid to read them. Now that I started to get shifts I read everything carefully. How can I better phrase this? Should I try to explain what I meant by this to the manager?