Reminders of Reminders of Reminders
Sep. 27th, 2025 10:43 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
arlieMy bridge club has once again sent me multiple emails, telling me about a bridge game scheduled at a time too early in the day for me. They hold lots of games, and are eager for more people to play. Once a week, they have an evening game. But it's important to them that I hear about all of them. How else will they get more attendance at their 10 AM games?
My online pharmacy feels a need to send me 4 or 5 emails per package they send me. They also require proactive action once a year for each prescription, because they won't send a request for a refill prescription without asking me first.
After an attempt at cleanup, I currently have 45 threads in my INBOX, each containing one or more unread emails. This does not count unread emails auto-filed into other mailboxes, generally because I have strong reasons to believe they aren't actionable. It also doesn't count anything recognized as spam.
I routinely lose important emails among all the junk mail, even with an active spam filter and other filters for FYI and routine verbosity.
Meanwhile, when I delete the obligatory requests to respond to customer satisfaction surveys, I get sent reminders of this pending task I've already decided not to do. If I respond accurately - "now that you've punished me for using your service by demanding I respond to surveys, I won't use or recommend you ever again" it'll be misinterpreted as a complaint about whatever employee I dealt with, rather than a complaint about the demand that I contribute my precious time to their not-so-precious business interests.
Note to the senders of most of those 45 threads: I hope your afterlife involves wading through emails, full of repetitive rubbish of limited interest, to find the one and only email that - if read attentively - might relieve your ongoing agony, in the manner of Dante's afterlife for sellers of bogus medicine.
A few of your messages *are* the things I'm looking for. Most though are e.g. 5 separate threads to convey one piece of information I want, in the manner of my wretched online pharmacy. And that's with the outright spam already pruned.
My online pharmacy feels a need to send me 4 or 5 emails per package they send me. They also require proactive action once a year for each prescription, because they won't send a request for a refill prescription without asking me first.
After an attempt at cleanup, I currently have 45 threads in my INBOX, each containing one or more unread emails. This does not count unread emails auto-filed into other mailboxes, generally because I have strong reasons to believe they aren't actionable. It also doesn't count anything recognized as spam.
I routinely lose important emails among all the junk mail, even with an active spam filter and other filters for FYI and routine verbosity.
Meanwhile, when I delete the obligatory requests to respond to customer satisfaction surveys, I get sent reminders of this pending task I've already decided not to do. If I respond accurately - "now that you've punished me for using your service by demanding I respond to surveys, I won't use or recommend you ever again" it'll be misinterpreted as a complaint about whatever employee I dealt with, rather than a complaint about the demand that I contribute my precious time to their not-so-precious business interests.
Note to the senders of most of those 45 threads: I hope your afterlife involves wading through emails, full of repetitive rubbish of limited interest, to find the one and only email that - if read attentively - might relieve your ongoing agony, in the manner of Dante's afterlife for sellers of bogus medicine.
A few of your messages *are* the things I'm looking for. Most though are e.g. 5 separate threads to convey one piece of information I want, in the manner of my wretched online pharmacy. And that's with the outright spam already pruned.
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