Thursday, April 11, 2013

I'm really not that into you


You think it’s just a simple click of the button but the buggers have set it up to ensure that you stay connected until they’re ready to let you go.
I’ve learnt that unsubscribing from unsolicited email services and newsletters takes, on average, at least three clicks. And just when I think I’ve nailed the unwelcome intruder, even after “they’ve” sent me a mail confirming that I’ve been unsubscribed, the very next day I’ll get another email offering me the latest gizmo or get-rich-quick-scheme.
For many years, Reader’s Digest magazine made a virtue of direct marketing using free gift trial offers sent to you through the post. The free gifts made you believe that somebody was really thinking of you. Trying to return the cloying gift at the local post office was another matter entirely.
 “Spam” seems a way too innocuous-sounding word for the maximum frustration caused by those who invade one’s email inbox, ala Digest, to market their businesses directly.
Some email updates, I concede, I elected to receive years ago when I had some obscure interest in those activities. But I’ve grown on since then.
Others were clearly recommendations (read: sales leads) from someone who claims to be a friend and who hopes to secure X number of loyalty points for including my email details. Or from my internet service provider, who have their own commercial reasons for distributing addresses.
In my inbox currently is an alert from Women’s Health telling the in-shape modern woman how to keep all her bits firm and in place. Often, there’s something about “how to keep him interested”, which amounts to keeping all the bits firm and in place or “how to interview for a job”, which somehow also relates to bits being firm and in place.
I have deleted missives from Homemark, FedEx, Imagine Cruising, Johannesburg Stock Exchange, Brian Williams, Kishore, Groupon, and a string of lenders.
I get a newsletter of karaoke playlists, another on EC news (usually two-week old articles from local papers), mails on courses from project management, through to photography and marketing.
I have offers to work from home – the online equivalent of putting your spit on envelopes. And political parties think they’ll get my vote by dumping weekly garbage on me.
I get invited to enjoy freebies including Apple technology launches – pity they didn’t throw in a free flight to the event in northern California; that would have been a great email deal.
There was the company selling new skins for laptops. Bizarrely, this mailing was actually useful as, just a couple of weeks earlier, a loved one had asked if I knew how to replace the Barbie glossy pink lid of her laptop, without trawling church fetes for crocheted laptop covers in vibey colours.
On Fridays, I get a long list of weekend show houses from estate agents with whom I’ve had the slightest cursory contact over the years, some of whom object when I spam them back.
Yes, I know there are ways of restricting access to your inbox, blocking mails from certain addresses or hiding unwanted mail so that you don’t “see” them. But there is always the danger that some important mail ends up being hidden by your internet service’s spam blockers.
The modern, online version of returning your free Digest gift at the post office is the “opt out” button which often means having to answer questions on why you’re leaving, hence the average three clicks to unsubscribe.
There’s seldom a tick box for “Because I’m flippin peeved off with all the rubbish you push through my mailbox and, by the way, I never asked you to mail me in the first place!” – RAY HARTLE

Saturday, April 6, 2013

Crap driving in the 'wild East' is the pits


Crap.
It’s easy to think that sums up how road users in the Eastern Cape go about their business.
But the trick is to adopt a regal stance, as if you are a passenger in a king’s carriage and not driving the skedonk you usually go around in.
Such a disposition will allow you, literally, to waft through the madness like a blue light motorcade with motorbike outriders and remote buttons to switch the traffic lights on your way.
In this guise, you can afford to be kind.
Other drivers are not foolish bumpkins who should never have left their villages for the annual jaunt to the market. They’re loyal subjects who, notwithstanding some idiocy, do your unspoken bidding, including pulling over to the side of the road, in awe that you’re on the throne and all is well with their world.
You reciprocate with good grace, showing your homie a smart royal high five, not by asking “Whoa fool, what were you thinking back there?”
At the four-way stop street, you understand that mere mortal local driver subjects will take a wee bit longer than you did but eventually, they, too, will get the “first come, first go” rule, so no need to shout at the next dawdler.
Egg them on at traffic circles, gently, without reference to moving-anytime-this-year. They’ll realise they really can go, they don’t have to stop or yield to you. The same rule applies here as it does at all circles - yield to the right - except at those circles which have a big notice board indicating ‘first come, first go’.”
And never shake your imperial mace when the traffic lights are out and other motorists have forgotten that the intersection reverts to a four-way stop. Simply rely on the majestic four-wheeler’s accident avoidance design to get you out of trouble in the middle of the crossroads.
As for slowcoaches going at 15k’s an hour, don’t ponder the eternal question “why do slow drivers drive slowly?” or point out to them with your middle finger that you decreed 60k was a safe speed limit. Just enjoy the extra time to gaze upon your kingdom from the comfort of your cab.
And, they’re way better road hogging vassals than inveterate lane changers.
Sometimes, the limo will be a bit too big for rush-hour traffic. Don’t tailgate from your throne, or hoot. A kind nudge to the cars ahead of you will open up the extra inch you need to squeeze through.
A similar stately approach will work for those who stop slap bang on the “keep clear” road marking at the start of your driveway. Granted, they’re imbeciles, but they’re your imbeciles.
Indicators on cars are like your inheritance – carefully hidden lest people think you’re a show-off - don’t reprimand those who turn without indicating.
If others have not seen the arrow giving them right-of-way, don’t ask (through your open window): “What the hell are you dreaming about?” Wave them through with the ceremonial flag you keep on the dashboard.
Remember, these are like last-second indicators, slow exiters of parking spaces, the ubiquitous cellphone-users, those who lack the ability to anticipate what’ll happen next on the road - bad drivers but good subjects.
Cyclists are a challenge for any monarch. But they’re your followers too, despite riding all bunched up instead of single filing, not stopping where they should and taking their obscenely bulging lycra attire into half-decent coffee shops at the end of their rides.
So too with pedestrians, who may cross roads with a never-say-die impunity.
If you can, like Kipling, then ride with royal decorum with your fellow travellers. - RAY HARTLE