Putting a stop to pesty emails

TO THOSE who still have not entered the email nation – and we know there are still some of you out there – this column will be a complete waste of time. Tear out this page and use it to wrap fish … or line the bottom of the parakeet cage.

To the rest of you … pay attention, and prepare to share in my anguish.

When email first came into our lives it was a dark, unknown and (for some) a scary world. However, it was a tool that quickly caught on.

Email has become the most widely used medium of communication within the business world. A 2010 study on workplace communication by Paytronics found 83 percent of U.S. knowledge workers (non-physical labor) felt email was critical to their success and productivity at work.

In the working world, for many it is the first order of business every day. Open emails. Read. Respond … Repeat. Over and over again.

The number of emails that come into my two most-used Inboxes – business and personal – on a normal day is too high to count. But, on any typical day, the number of email that I write and send is well over 100.

Some short. Some longer. Some including attachments.

It is an amazing information highway … but one that has developed too many potholes.

THE PROBLEM became evident when a noticeable amount of wear appeared on the one particular key on the keyboard of my laptop. It is the one used to delete unwanted emails.

Each morning, the first exercise is to go down the Inbox list and delete the obviously unwanted emails. These are the ones that are generated as a marketing effort to get you to purchase any number of unwanted products or services.

Discount flooring. Financial services. Prescription drugs from Canada. Delete. Delete. Delete. Weight loss plans. Weight loss pills. Weight loss tricks. Delete. Delete. Delete. Printer ink. Reverse mortgages. Cure for acne.

Delete. Delete. Really Delete. They’re a bit late on that last one.

In one day I got four different notices about dental implants. Did somebody think I was an ice hockey player?

Repair hearing loss, using a 200-year-old Amish farmer trick. How much hearing loss could there be in a society where the people are not around noisy

machines and they never attend a rock concert?

And there is always an email from a company claiming to restore lost hair – effectively and inexpensively. If it was so cheap and easy, why are there so many bald men walking around America?

Of course, the real winners are always in the “adult” category.

Not a day goes by without an ad for Viagra from Mexico. This may all be part of a plot. Bombard the reader with so many images – until the need is created through suggestion and repetition.

And then there was the ad lately from a contact promising to supply Russian wives.

I asked my wife if I could get one for my birthday. She said, “No.” Another delete.

THEN, one morning, the crush of unwanted emails became unbearable. I was spending two, three, four sessions a day just deleting emails just so that I could see what I had left … the ones I needed for daily communication.

So I went on a campaign. I started opening these unwanted emails, going to the bottom of the page and finding the “Unsubscribe” link. With delight I pressed it.

Usually, it brought me

to another page, where I had to supply my email address – why is not clear, since they sent it to me in the first place. And I had to hit unsubscribe again.

Over and over, I committed the email version of a mob hit on these unwanted pests. There was a euphoric feeling to seeing the message: “You are successfully unsubscribed. Sorry to see you go.”

During the first day of my crusade, I unsubscribed from 18 different companies. What a feeling.

On the second day, the campaign heightened slightly. Another 21 companies got bumped off.

Certainly that should have lightened the email load.

But after a day away from the office, it seemed as if water had rushed into the void. I was inundated by these unwanted messages. There were at least six messages, using email addresses that had been pirated from known friends and associates. The technique is known as “email spoofing” and is designed to make the message look like it comes from a known and trusted source.

In this particular “spoofing” campaign, the messages all encouraged a weight loss plan that helped Oprah Winfrey lose 25 pounds. As a result, I now officially hate Oprah Winfrey.

BOTTOM LINE – It appears as if this campaign to unsubscribe from all of these unwanted emails is really an exercise in frustration management. It has the overall effect of killing ants, one at a time, when there is an entire colony on the sidewalk in front of your front door. But there is still some measure of satisfaction.

Unfortunately, many times when you buy something online, or inquire about a service, your email address is given to a distribution house … which then distributes it to a long list of companies that are waiting to bother you. Today’s lineup: Las Vegas hotel sale. Unsubscribe.

Do you or someone you know suffer from addiction? Unsubscribe.

Protect loved ones with burial insurance. Unsubscribe. Not planning to go anywhere soon.

And, at the end of this daily exercise, there is the message that reads: “Success. Your address has been removed from our email list.”

I am going to continue killing these ants … one at a time.