Christmas Mail
During the olden days, around December every year, people would be busy stuffing cards into envelopes, then licking envelopes and then finally licking stamps, running to the post office and wondering whether they had left someone out by oversight.
I would always pity the postman as he came with his heavy load of cards and tried to stuff them all into my tiny mail box, which generally received three letters in a month, apart from the bills.
It was such a joy to retrieve those cards, open them, admire them and then put them all over the table and the surrounding furniture, lighting up the place with all that goodwill.
It was so good...
These days, I hardly get any Christmas cards - however, my email inbox in inundated with emails not only from people who would normally have sent me greeting cards but also some from people I have forgotten they exist. I really have to scratch my head to figure out who sent me that greeting and where I got to know him.
The problem is that it has become far too easy to greet people and not to overlook anyone - and you do not even have to lick the stamps. The only thing the sender has to do is to write one email (possibly with a header like "dear all" which removes even that hint of a personal touch) and then in the address field, insert all his contacts with a flick of the mouse and press the send button. That's it.
The question is - should I take these greetings seriously? Of course the sender has no ill feelings for me, he couldn't possibly have any, considering he has not even thought about me - I just happen to be in his list of contacts.
Luckily for all of us, such emails which are addressed to a lot of people are generally filtered and put aside as Spam, so you do not have to endure any of those greetings.
Is my view of such emails fair or am I being rather unkind? What do you think?
During the olden days, around December every year, people would be busy stuffing cards into envelopes, then licking envelopes and then finally licking stamps, running to the post office and wondering whether they had left someone out by oversight.
I would always pity the postman as he came with his heavy load of cards and tried to stuff them all into my tiny mail box, which generally received three letters in a month, apart from the bills.
It was such a joy to retrieve those cards, open them, admire them and then put them all over the table and the surrounding furniture, lighting up the place with all that goodwill.
It was so good...
These days, I hardly get any Christmas cards - however, my email inbox in inundated with emails not only from people who would normally have sent me greeting cards but also some from people I have forgotten they exist. I really have to scratch my head to figure out who sent me that greeting and where I got to know him.
The problem is that it has become far too easy to greet people and not to overlook anyone - and you do not even have to lick the stamps. The only thing the sender has to do is to write one email (possibly with a header like "dear all" which removes even that hint of a personal touch) and then in the address field, insert all his contacts with a flick of the mouse and press the send button. That's it.
The question is - should I take these greetings seriously? Of course the sender has no ill feelings for me, he couldn't possibly have any, considering he has not even thought about me - I just happen to be in his list of contacts.
Luckily for all of us, such emails which are addressed to a lot of people are generally filtered and put aside as Spam, so you do not have to endure any of those greetings.
Is my view of such emails fair or am I being rather unkind? What do you think?
