Jan 08 2007
No Thank You
I read this article on thank you notes today and it reminded me of something that has been bothering me for a long time. Mind you, this rant does not include wedding and other events that are so bogged down in stupid customs there is no hope of reform. But thank you notes really tick me off. Or maybe its just how people are about them.
If someone sends me a handwritten note to say thank you for something, I consider that ruder than giving me a hug in person or calling me on the phone. The article above says the opposite. There are quotes from people in there who say that if a relative “only” calls them to say thank you, they never send them a gift again. This is the stupidest thing I have ever heard. A thank you in the person’s own voice (be it phone or in person) is millions of time better than a stupid note.
Getting pissed over no thank you of any kind? I can totally get behind that. We had some friends over the other day for a holiday party who hand just about $500 worth of alcohol food and only 3 people even said a hurried thank you on their way out the door with no one sending us a note of any kind and only 2 people stayed to help clean up. Does that ticket me off? Sure! But at least now I know which people are the jerks and who not to invite next time.
OK, I can maybe see thank you via text message or IM being viewed as lazy. It’s better than nothing, but definately below an email or phone call. But a long heartfelt email? I would much rather have that then a stupid handwritten signature at the end of a Hallmark card. Email was invented as a cheaper and faster alternative to handwritten snail mail. In no way is it somehow “insulting” compared to handwriting. I consider it a favor to the recipient if they don’t have to try to make sense of my terrible handwriting. Whenever I get a handwritten Thank You, I usually up with only about half of the words in it understood since I cannot read their writings. An email that you took the time to compose and spell check is leagues above a hurried sentence, regardless of the fact that it’s in type instead of pen.
What bothers me about all this is the LOLs (Little Old Lady) etiquette mavens around the world drone on and on about the glory of a handwritten note. It’s like someone droning on about how much more professional your business handout looks if you do it on a typewriter instead of a computer. What? It’s the last thing in society where they cling onto old technology under this warped guise that its better manners.
Let me take this rant one step further. If I gushed to my relative when I opened their present in front of them about how much I loved their gift, gave them a hug/kiss, etc, why do I still have to mail them a handwritten note? That goes so many levels beyond stupid, I cannot deal. But yet, if I don’t I get a guilt trip from them.
Here is another one. Someone invites you over. After you come home, they write you a thank you note for coming. You feel like this is some passive aggressive way of them saying that your in person thank you and when you took them out to dinner while you were there for their hospitality aren’t good enough, so you send them a thank you note. Then you enter the realm of total madness when they send you a thank you note FOR YOUR THANK YOU NOTE!!! The madness has to stop somewhere!
I love my grandmother, don’t get me wrong. But when I got engaged, she sent me a card. It was Thanksgiving weekend when it arrived so I didn’t even open it until 4 days after it arrived and then I didn’t call her until the next day. When I did call her to say “thank you for the card” she was really annoyed at me that I hadn’t called the second it arrived to gush a thank you. If you are going to guilt someone about the fact that they didn’t seem grateful enough for your gesture, aren’t you undoing any niceness you did by the gesture?
Either way, this by itself isn’t the problem. The problem is that when, a few months later, I sent this same grandmother a framed picture of my fiancé and I from FL with a picture of us in it, it wasn’t until 3 weeks later, when I called her and asked if she had gotten it that she, in an annoyed voice, said it has come weeks ago. So she expected me to call her within 24 hours to thank her for a card but saw no reason to thank me at all for a present? If I hadn’t asked, would she have even told me it arrived? I didn’t expect a thanks, I just expected a “what a cute picture” phone call so at least I knew it wasn’t lost in the mail.
Double standard aside, I am all about common courtesy. Taking 5 seconds to say thank you for something I gave/did, even if its really late, goes a very long way with me. There are quite a few of my friends who aren’t on my list because they never seem to say thank you for anything. I guess its just one of those things that you need to evaluate whether its worth it to be friends with them even if they take you for grated.
OK, this concludes my rant. I get like this sometimes right after the holidays.
(In case you are wondering, this is not related to wedding thank you card stress. The photographer took quite a while to get them to us but, once they did, I had all of mine written and sent out within a week. They didn’t bother me because I opened nearly all of them when the giver wasn’t present so it was nice to be able to say thanks. Though my arm reallllllly hurt by the end. )
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