This is my ninth year of running and writing for Slope, and in that lengthy timespan, I have received many thousands of emails from readers. The vast, vast majority of these have been nice, friendly, laudatory, and inspirational. A tiny handful, however, have been nasty.
Nasty ones typically hide behind a veil of anonymity, but I got one this weekend from a fellow who had signed up for Slope+, cancelled it, and then was briefly using SocialTrade. Apparently he didn’t like getting the daily updates from SocialTrade, so he wrote me this:
Subject: Re: Delivery Status Notification (Failure)
To: tim@socialtrade.com
|
mailto:tim@socialtrade.com
please stop sending this, I’m not interested, I don’t remember my password
and I don’t care for you site. Your always searching for a pat on the
back, such childish acts for a rich prick, oh I joined slope+ and you showed me ad’s, well I quit after just one
month, I’ll not pay you a monthly fee just so you can make watch ad’s.
That’s bullshit, Timme……… HMF
Clark [last name removed]
- Lack of capitalization at the beginning of sentences;
- Run-on sentences (note particularly the first three phrases);
- Commencing a sentence with a conjunction;
- Confusing a personal pronoun (your) with the intended contraction (you’re);
- Misuse of an apostrophe in order to make a noun plural (ad’s);
- Misspelling (it’s Timmay)
- Wrong word (you site should be your site)
Technical/Factual
- Unnecessary repetition of destination address: when you type an email, you obviously don’t need to write “to:tim@socialtrade.com” within the body of the email;
- Failure to remember password: this is easily solved on the site with the “Forgot Password” link, which every site on the planet has;
- Unnecessary request for cessation of SocialTrade notifications: it shows right there in the email where to stop the notifications. One need only be able to read English to do this. No one needs to write me about this.
- Ads showing up for Slope+: this is simply not the case. If you’re signed in, there are no ads. Period. Of course, one has to have the good sense to actualy bother signing in.
- “Rich prick”: I am neither rich (merely solidly upper-middle-class) nor a prick (I’m just a big sweetie, as any sentient being can tell you).
- Ambiguity: I have no idea what “HMF” is, so it should be stated plainly.
Here, then, would be a proper version of the aforementioned hate mail:
Dear Timmay,
Please stop sending SocialTrade updates. I am not interested, and I don’t even remember my password. I don’t even like your site.
You always seem to be seeking a pat on the back. That kind of behavior is a childish act, you upper-middle-class gentleman.
I joined Slope+ partly to suppress ads, and I was seeing them anyway! Based on that, I quit after just one month. I’m not going to pay a monthly fee to see advertisements. That’s bullshit!
Sincerely,
Clark
Let’s get it right, people. I deserve better than this.