Do you find yourself checking out the list of confirmed guests before you respond to an evite invitation?
Do you look at your telephone when it rings to see who’s calling? (Yes, there are those of us who don’t bother to set-up distinctive rings for our nearest and dearest).
Do you automatically click the maybe button on your evite responses so you can back out if something better comes along –I mean- something else comes up.
Have you felt perturbed when a live person answers a call when you were planning to just leave a message on their answering machine. (Leaving a message is not the same as actually delivering a message and engaging in dialogue with the recipient of said message.)
Admit it. You know you do.
Such is the ambivalence about electronic medi. While it makes processes and symptons efficient and helps us be organized, it also:
- allows us to spy,
- demands that we snoop, and
- turns us into avoiders of people and definitive decisions.
It is so last century to actually pick up a phone just because it rings – something we used to do back in the day. (I’m so 2010 you’re so 2000 and when?* I’ve been waiting to use this line for some time now.)
It’s so inefficient to just send an email, invite people to something and make a list of who’s coming, who’s not coming and who hasn’t replied. (To heck with them any way.) Non-repliers should be deleted from future invites.
Send a print invitation? Really? Unless it’s a wedding who bothers with those any more? (Except maybe for a few of us holdouts who have a collection of invites that we are trying to eventually use-up.)
This i-spy, snooping, deciding to respond based on who else will be at an event rather than one’s availability or the importance of the event itself is impolite jive.
I’mon try to do better.
Ms. Jive Turkey
*My apologies to the Black-Eyed Peas for tweaking this lyric.
First, I only have a hard line in my house for emergencies, but since my dad, 89, lives with me it’s used for actual calls. I’ve had to train him to look at the caller ID. I tell him that people who know me well don’t call me on the home hard line and so, anyone else, if it’s important, will leave a message. I’ve been annoyed after he’s called me to the phone to talk to someone doing a survey or trying to renew a service contract. One I would ignore, the other I might call if they left a message and I was interested.
On evites, I decide based on reason, host, location, and my schedule.
Well I have definitely been sprung Candelaria!!!
I have to put my hand up and admit to all of the above. I slotted into 2010 very easily.
Great insightful post….I loved it.
Peggy xxx