I write this fourth post fully aware that it is dripping with hypocrisy. As someone who a) doesn’t really like people b) doesn’t like the phone and as a result, c) will regularly text whole ‘conversations’ rather than actually pick up the phone, what right do I have to comment on the demise of conversation? I shall plough on regardless however….

Communicating in this day and age consists primarily of texts, tweets, comments, status updates, emails and at best instant messaging. For me this is ideal, I can’t be bothered with small talk. However, these all have their downsides (downsides are my thing you may have noticed by now) and shall all get the AliMac treatment.

E-mail

Email is the snail mail of the 21st Century. As with all forms of written communication it suffers with familiar problems – receivers of my emails often do not pick-up on the ‘tongue-in-cheek-iness’ or sarcasm with which I write and like to interpret it as a personal slight or insult. It is often difficult to get the tone of the email. Secondly, you have to wait around for a response. They may get the email, start reading it and then get distracted by something. They may get it, read it and delete without responding (how rude!!), it may get filtered as spam, they may open it and the opening of the email deletes the internet, they may file it in a to-do list for later and conveniently forget about it, it may well get lost in the plethora of other crap received that day or as unlikely as this is, they may not receive it at all. The latter is so unlikely however that if anyone says “Oh, I must not have received your email” you can be pretty sure they are lying. They probably don’t like you either.

Obviously the biggest problem with email is spam. I’ve had my hotmail account for probably over 10 years. It has become so cluttered with spam that I no longer even bother looking at it (6983 unread messages in inbox at last count!). Gmail seems to be a lot better at filtering out the spam before it gets to me, but some still does slip through the net. Spam is essentially unsolicited emails that promote a product or service and contain a link to a website. The spammer is hoping that you are stupid enough to send a reply back to the email or go to their web site and buy some crap. Should you do this they will not only relieve you of your hard-earned cash, but usually have the bonus of being able to get to your personal details and scam you further or sell on your details to other unscrupulous spammers for them to bombard you further.

This leads me neatly onto viruses. Email (spam in particular) is an STD riddled-whore of a method of communication. I can pretty much guarantee that virtually anyone reading this will have at some point received an email containing a virus. Accidentally open this email and it will think nothing of fornicating you and your machine, leaving without a post-coitus cuddle, without even knowing your name and be on its merry way to screw all your friends leaving you feeling violated and having the indignity of having to call all those you know to break the news to them that they may be infected.

Though not quite as bad as spam, with email bringing about the first easy method of mass communication, along came the ultimate in laziness; the “CC”. For those who aren’t nerds, this means Carbon Copy – essentially sending a copy of the email being sent to someone else other than it’s primarily intended for. BCC is for Blind Carbon Copy and is the same except for the fact anyone who is put into this section will not have their email addresses revealed to the other recipients and the email will effectively be sent to them in secret. The only use for this is for getting other people in trouble in bullshit office politics.

These Copy emails come from someone who can’t be bothered to talk to you directly, and don’t have the decency to actually get to the point that they believe may be important to you. Instead you have to spend precious minutes reading through all the irrelevant nonsense to find the nugget of information that barely concerns you. The only thing worse than the CC is of course the “FWD”. Any emails I receive with FWD as the preface in the subject are immediately deleted as a matter of course. If I wasn’t included when the email was first sent it is certainly going to be of no use to me 10 people further down the line. These emails are generally sent out en masse without a thought. More than likely they involve a kitten. Or some sob-story followed by how I’ll die of some horrible incurable disease if I don’t forward on to 50 people in the next 5 minutes. Let me tell you now people, these emails will not improve your luck, love life or dramatically increase your wealth. I have even had the same email multiple times from numerous parties. Worse still, when I did get involved with forwarding jokes etc. to all in my address book, there was a time when something I initially sent out to someone actually came back to me a few days later as a FWD. It was at that point that I decided never to forward an email again.

Furthermore, email is very rude. At work I have to use Lotus Notes. But not just any Lotus Notes. This is 20th Century Lotus Notes. Behold the magnificence:

A helpful feature of this email client is that when there is an email actually received it will completely disregard what you are doing regardless of how important it is. A “You have Email” box will pop up…usually when I am in mid-flow of composing a belting formula – removing me from where I was working and leaving me aimlessly typing (I have a habit of looking at the keyboard rather than the screen) at an uninterested grey box. Furthermore, just to compound my annoyance the ‘open email’ button on the pop-up is non-functional.

This email software is just about the worst I have ever used. When it does decide to work, it will only bring your emails to you when it is good and ready. Any emails received over a few lines long and it will flatly refuse to even entertain the idea of bringing them to your inbox. And you can forget about receiving any attached pictures. Or any media for that matter. It will tell you in the mail that there was something attached once, but it has long since been lost in the virtual wilderness. Useful.

Finally, woe betide you if you happen to be the numpty that hits the reply-all button by mistake sending your irrelevant blether to everyone else on the list. It happens. What I will not forgive however, are those people who helpfully point out that they think they are the only ones that have noticed that this email has been sent in error – replying to the previously replied-all email, advising not to reply to said replied-all email. Repeat ad infinitum. This actually happens. I received literally hundreds of these emails over a two-day period until the email system eventually broke recently. These people should be put to death by papercut. A punishment fitting the crime.

That is all.