Honestly, I’ve never been so in demand. “Please can we keep in touch?” implores one message. “ACTION REQUIRED: we want to hear from you,” goes another. “We NEED you,” proclaims a third.
With less than a fortnight until new laws force companies to ask before bombarding us with marketing missives, my inbox has turned a touch Fatal Attraction. Everyone from my local yoga studio to the interiors shop I once bought a cushion from is begging for the OK to continue sending round robins.
It’s spam’s last gasp — as of May 25, the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation means that businesses wishing to “stay connected” will need our “informed and unambiguous” consent. So, no more pre-ticked boxes adding us to spurious mailing lists buried in the T&Cs. Hurrah!
In fact, while we’re at it, might I also suggest a few other inbox irritants the EU would do well to ban too...
Those little red flags marking messages as “urgent”. It is a truth universally acknowledged that emails in possession of these passive-aggressive signifiers are never urgent. Not least since anyone bothering to attach one clearly has too much time on their hands. Please desist.
“Reply all” — the Hydra of emails. You delete one only for more to emerge. Endlessly infuriating.
Read receipts. I once, on claiming to have missed someone’s email, had them respond: “Funny, because you opened it at 8.45 on Tuesday…” The shame!
Out-of-office-auto-bragging. “Hi, thanks for your message. I won’t be replying because I’m sunning myself on a beach and have better things to do. Hope you’re enjoying the rain!”.
“Nice to e-meet you.” Self-explanatory. See also: “looping in” and “circling back”.
Seriously, Mr Juncker, do give it some thought. If only you’d done this before the referendum, things might have been so different….
I’m having a green clearout at home
Speaking of banning things, the recent downgrading of wet wipes and plastic straws from everyday staples to taboo items has made me look afresh at other household goods. Many are so patently absurd you wonder how they came to exist. Envelopes lined with plastic bubble wrap — what is the point when paper padding would do just as well and be so much easier to recycle? Worse are those shiny metallic ones, impossible to open. Then there are the dishwasher tablets individually wrapped in cling film, disposable razors, single-use foil trays….
Who dreamed this stuff up? And why did we ever think they were OK?
Carey’s timely lesson in self-worth
Many will relate to Carey Mulligan’s observation that she didn’t query whether she was being paid the same as her co-stars at the start of her career because she felt “lucky to be there” in the first place. “I felt so completely overwhelmed,” she told reporters at the Cannes Film Festival. “Like, ‘Gosh, I’m so excited to be here, I should pay you guys’. ”
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I can remember, aged 24 and having obtained my first pay rise, the fear that I’d disappoint — and that, should redundancies come around, I’d be first in line for the chop. This wasn’t just imposter syndrome or misplaced modesty — the fact is, like Mulligan, I was lucky to have a job in an industry I had dreamed about joining for years, and being aware of that isn’t a bad thing.
Still, it’s easy to forget the transactional nature of employment. It took until my thirties for me to stop viewing my bosses as charitable benefactors and realise employment was a two-way street; I wish someone had told me sooner.
Supper o’clock has moved to 6.45pm
What time is optimum for a dinner reservation? Unable to secure anything later than a 6.45pm table at Perilla, my friend was apologetic; 15 minutes later and I doubt he’d have felt the need. Practically, 6.45pm is little different from 7pm — yet metaphysically they’re worlds apart, the former smacking of childhood teatime.
Sure enough, on arrival we had the place to ourselves but within 20 minutes it was full. In fact it allowed us that rare thing: a leisurely weeknight meal, beginning with cocktails and ending with cheese, all by 10pm, so 6.45pm might be my new witching hour.
