Whatever happened to professionalism? Seriously?
I'm not even talking about bad spelling and worse grammar.
I'm talking about swearing in supposedly professional correspondence. When did this become acceptable? Oh wait, that's right.. IT DIDN'T.
Okay, so the site I work for has a number of newsletters that go out. When someone signs up, they have the option of opting out of them. It's right there on the registration page, and frankly, if you're too damn lazy to make sure all your boxes are unchecked, than you deserve to have your shit spammed.
Occasionally we get an an email requesting to be manually unsubscribed, if the unsubscribe function is not working. Mostly they are polite, some have an air of desperation ("Please, sir, make the emails stop!").
Tonight I received an email from the CEO of what I can assume is some kind of fish processing company that simply stated:
Stop sending fucking emails , you are wasting my time.Wow.
I have a filthy mouth with the best of them, but really? You're sending this out into cyberspace, to others in your industry, with your name and your company name?
That's just not good business sense.
I have a file I keep at work for dealing with really difficult customers. Basically I write out the things I'd really like to say, so I can then move on and write the nice, professional, non-snarky, non-sarcastic response. I make sure to write my imaginary responses in Word so I don't ever accidentally send one off to the customer. Pretty S.M.R.T, no?
Dear Sir,
We have removed you from the mailing list. Please accept our apologies for assuming that when you signed up for fifteen different newsletters that you might actually want to receive the newsletters. In retrospect, I guess that's pretty darn silly. We'll stop sending you fucking emails now. Good luck in the fish business, by the way.
Signed,
The Helpdesk.
This is one of the more pleasant ones. I'd almost consider sending this, minus the second last sentence, because then I'd just be a hypocrite. But I probably won't.
Oh that would piss me off to no end. If I was you I would send that email.
ReplyDeleteI think I need to do this for the douche that rear-ended me in February. But I won't. I think I'd be too tempted to mail it since I have his address.
ReplyDeleteIf I had to do your job, I'd be fired by now.
ReplyDeleteBecause I have NO inner editor on a good day (which makes this whole "being a writer thing" sort of sketchy) and I would have sent that email.
~Lori
p.s. my captcha is crourf. Sounds like a wet cough when I try to say it phonetically. Not nearly as good as Nallsy.
(Put yer Nalls to the Walls, man!)
I love that reply! It's a keeper and yes, you should send it. Assholes like that need a snarky slap in the face. Permission to borrow it? :)
ReplyDeletepeople are so ridiculous sometimes. thanks for giving me a good laugh haah!!
ReplyDeletebut ugh... for some reason this reminded me of my days working customer service for verizon wireless. (purgatory of my existance thus far)
Rudeness so far from lovely and yet so prevalent in our society. I would say send the note to him with the word fuck in quotes and maybe he would realize how out of line he was...but somehow I feel he would miss the point.
ReplyDeleteI do the same thing -- first I write the letter I WANT to write, and then I write the letter professionalism demands I write.
ReplyDeleteI have to admit, though, that I would be sorely tempted to write the professional letter, get on OneSource and find the VP of HR for the fish place and then copy that person on your response. I mean, seriously: Do they know what kind of idjit is using their letterhead?!
Pearl
You should take that file of the letters you would like to write and make it into a book. I'd buy it :)
ReplyDeleteI've thought about it, and may still consider it.. thing is, it would take a lot of editing in order to make it so the company was not easily identifiable, and I fear that in some cases, such editing would probably render the letters no longer funny.
ReplyDelete