I received an email from a vendor just now with a few quotes for various KVM solutions for our new data center (KVM = Keyboard, Video, Mouse: a system that gives you remote BIOS-level console access to all the servers in the data center so you can do whatever you need to do from the non-calorie-burning convenience of your desk). The email was fine... informative, cheerful, mildly ingratiating and yet irritating at the same time. To be specific it was the saleman's signature line that I found particularly bothersome. It had a little tree icon and the following request: 'Please don't print this e-mail unless you really need to' followed by a very annoying happy emoticon.Now I'm not sure what exactly annoyed me more: the fact that this guy felt it was his job to tell me, a potential customer, how I should behave towards the environment OR the idea that refraining to print an email would in any way make the world a better place to live. Perhaps I should add to my signature "Next time you go to the bathroom, please don't wipe your ass unless you really need to... I mean you probably already stunk up the place, why not share it with the rest of the office."
I have also considered the possibility that this entire post is based upon displaced aggression.
5 comments:
Hats off to KVM switches, the Remote Desktop Protocol, and other technologies that will keep IT work firmly in the "ridiculously sedentary" category!
Re the cutesy save-a-tree messages, they are common, and quite honestly for every one person it pisses off, ten other people smile and think, "what a caring, earth-conscious person!". It's a sort of marketing still. But I agree, it is thoroughly annoying. Perhaps you should email them back, saying your keyboard stuck on PrtScn and churned out nearly 2000 copies of their email before the printer ran out of paper, and if only they had not sent the email in the first place, that would have never happened, and now the blood/sap of a hundred innocent trees must be spilled in oblation, the Crying Indian Chief From That TV Commercial will shed a tear, and God/Mother Nature will be thoroughly displeased, all because of that email.
Don't they feel TERRIBLE!
I agree with Nick. This is most likely about marketing. This gentleman most likely understands that the more the customer believes that he is authentic about the product he is pushing they will be more likely to buy. The appearance of passion is always important when you are selling something, particularly to a generation who prefers it to truth.
This also brings up another point. These e-mails that end in some sort of quote or sharp tag-line always bring about a cynicism. I find myself constantly questioning whether or not the guy with the bumper sticker with the "life or death" message is genuine or not. Can passion be reflected in a catch-phrase? And if it can, is the one thing that you want to say (on your car or on your e-mail) really "spade and neuter your pet?"How did you decide that that was the one thing you wanted to wear on you shoulder.
Along with that (this is getting too long) I saw a car today that had a sticker in the window "God is My Co-Pilot." I thought to myself, "that's a shame." I imagined God (always with a beard) sitting in the cock-pit dryly staring at this person waiting to take the steering wheel from this completely unaware person. They lean over and say, "Can you pass the Dorito's, I can't reach them."
"spade and neuter your pet"
If the spelling there was unintentional I nominate that as the funniest spelling mistake of the week! That would be an awesome bumper sticker, as written above!
Spay vs spade, two very different things! :D
ROTF!! I didn't even notice it... perhaps the spade could be used for neutering if you realy really dislike the cat.
typing a head myslf aGin....:)
of course I meant spay.
funny how a typo can detract from the point. I should hire and editor.
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