In the inimitable words of Englebert Humperdinck, "let me go". How much did I love those emails when they first arrived, the emails about the latest and greatest of everything I was interested in last year. With the world on offer I took up all the offers, why not, when space is not a premium. Why not tick the box that will fill my inbox with offers, recipes, news, music, art and all manner of interests to engage me, edify me and make me interesting to talk to at the next gathering. You know the ending, so many emails I don't have enough hours in the day to even open up the interesting ones.
So a concerted effort this long weekend to rid myself of emails that no longer piquéd my interest, to clear my inbox and unclutter my mind, was supposed to take no longer than a coffee break. The first thing to surprise me was how many irrelevant emails I now get from subscriptions I thought would be of benefit, to my work regime, to my own education or just absorbing to read. From recipe catalogues, through sport reports to technology and entertainment, I find my inbox overwhelmed with correspondence that in the old days I would have taken from my letter box and used to light the BBQ. Nowadays that process is only a click away and my inbox will once again be mine, or so I thought.
Technology can lull you into a false sense of security with its speed, its attention to detail and its ability to cut corners to get you where you want to be right now. It is never as easy as they say it is and I found this out pouring my third cup of coffee and having hardly scratched the surface of my tidy up. I should have guessed by the fourth unsubscribe that caffeine was going to be my friend this morning.
The first email asked me to hit the unsubscribe button, which then led me to a website where I needed to re-enter my email address and re-hit unsubscribe, which then sent an email back to my inbox with a link for me to unsubscribe, which redirected me back to the website saying they were sorry to see me go and if I maybe, someday, somehow I wanted to receive emails again, I should just hit a designated button. I needed lots of coffee after the first go around. Today you cannot send commercial emails without the obligatory unsubscribe button but there is nothing to say they should make it easy to leave once they have you on their list, even if there are laws governing the use of such emails.
The CAN-SPAM law ( Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography And Marketing Act of 2003 ) enacted by George Bush was an example of governments trying to cope with the tirades of unhappy voters who's inbox had become a battleground for pornography and commercial marketers that had maybe forgotten, to put that little unsubscribe button at the bottom of their most important messages. Yet they never thought the activity could be so onerous and some time lines last up to ten days before you can get off the lists. Meaning many never bother and the inboxes continue to fill.
My morning was baffled by the myriad of processes and amazement at the lengths many companies employed to keep me informed. I gave up eventually, because my time is precious but I did finish with a plethora of subscription emails ending up in my spam filter to be cleared at the end of the month with a flourish of the delete button. In the end I retained my right to not be abused for hitting that subscribe button and regaining some control over my inbox, with the help of Mr Nespresso, who I still subscribe to.
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