Email Facts of Life

Read­ing Time: 3 min­utes

In light of some recent emails, Face­book and Twit­ter updates, and pan­icked calls from the user com­mu­ni­ty at large, I thought it was about time to res­ur­rect this time-worn–and some­what hackneyed–screed on email.  I did­n’t write this (if I had, it would have been more acer­bic) but it is nev­er­the­less true, and bears repeat­ing often.  Many of you may not remem­ber all of these ref­er­ences, but to me the par­al­lels to today are pre­scient and star­tling­ly unwa­ver­ing.  Please pay heed, feel free to for­ward, and above all else enjoy.

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  Email Facts Of Life
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  1. Big com­pa­nies don’t do busi­ness via chain let­ter. Bill Gates is not<br /> giv­ing you $1000, and Dis­ney is not giv­ing you a free vaca­tion. There<br /> is no baby food com­pa­ny issu­ing class-action checks. You can relax;<br /> there is no need to pass it on “just in case it’s true”. Fur­ther­more,<br /> just because some­one said in the mes­sage, four gen­er­a­tions back, that<br /> “we checked it out and it’s legit”, does not actu­al­ly make it true.
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  2. There is no kid­ney theft ring in New Orleans. No one is wak­ing up in<br /> a bath­tub full of ice, even if a friend of a friend swears it hap­pened<br /> to their cousin. If you are hell­bent on believ­ing the kid­ney-theft ring<br /> sto­ries, please see:<br /> http://urbanlegends.tqn.com/library/weekly/aa062997.htm<br /> http://urbanlegends.tqn.com/library/weekly/aa062997.htm And I quote:<br /> “The Nation­al Kid­ney Foun­da­tion has repeat­ed­ly issued requests for<br /> actu­al vic­tims of organ thieves to come for­ward and tell their sto­ries.<br /> None have.” That’s “none” as in “zero”. Not even your friend’s cousin.
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  3. Neiman Mar­cus does­n’t real­ly sell a $200 cook­ie recipe. And even if<br /> they do, we all have it. And even if you don’t, you can get a copy at:<br /> http://www.bl.net/forwards/cookie.html<br /> http://www.bl.net/forwards/cookie.html> Then, if you make the recipe,<br /> decide the cook­ies are that awe­some, feel free to pass the recipe on.
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  4. We all know all 500 ways to dri­ve your room­mates crazy, irri­tate<br /> co-work­ers gross out bath­room stall neigh­bors and creep out peo­ple on<br /> an ele­va­tor. We also know exact­ly how many engi­neers, col­lege stu­dents,<br /> Usenet posters and peo­ple from each and every world eth­nic­i­ty it takes<br /> to change a light­bulb
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  5. Even if the lat­est <span class="caps">NASA</span> rock­et disaster(s) <span class="caps">DID</span> con­tain plu­to­ni­um<br /> that went to par­tic­u­late over the east­ern seaboard, do you <span class="caps">REALLY</span> think<br /> this infor­ma­tion would reach the pub­lic via an <span class="caps">AOL</span> chain-let­ter?
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  6. There is no “Good Times” virus. In fact, you should nev­er, ever,<br /> ever for­ward any email con­tain­ing any virus warn­ing unless you first<br /> con­firm it at an actu­al site of an actu­al com­pa­ny that actu­al­ly deals<br /> with virii. Try: http://www.norton.com http://www.norton.com/. And<br /> even then, don’t for­ward it. We don’t care.
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  7. If your <span class="caps">CC</span>: list is reg­u­lar­ly longer than the actu­al con­tent of your<br /> mes­sage, you’re prob­a­bly going to Hell.
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  8. If you’re using Out­look, <span class="caps">IE</span>, or Netscape to write email, turn off<br /> the “<span class="caps">HTML</span> encod­ing.” Those of us on Unix shells can’t read it, and<br /> don’t care enough to save the attach­ment and then view it with a web<br /> brows­er, since you’re prob­a­bly for­ward­ing us a copy of the Neiman<br /> Mar­cus Cook­ie Recipe any­way.
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  9. If you still absolute­ly <span class="caps">MUST</span> for­ward that 10th-gen­er­a­tion mes­sage<br /> from a friend, at least have the decen­cy to trim the eight miles of<br /> head­ers show­ing every­one else who’s received it over the last 6 months.<br /> It sure would­n’t hurt to get rid of all the “>” that begin each line.<br /> Besides, if it has gone around that many times — we’ve prob­a­bly already<br /> seen it.
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  10.Craig Sher­gold in Eng­land is not dying of can­cer or any­thing else at<br /> this time and would like every­one to stop send­ing him their busi­ness<br /> cards. He appar­ent­ly is also no longer a “lit­tle boy” either.
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