License to Forward

Just a thought...Mike and I had this conversation at dinner last night. We have decided that you should have to pass a competency test and receive a license to forward emails to people. You should have to establish that you can tell the difference between something funny and something that is a waste of time. Not that I have anything against wasting time, mind you. Look at this blog situation I find myself in. There are several genres of forward that irritate me. I'll rank them, I will! Letterman-style.

#5 The Answer 50 Questions About Yourself and Cut and Paste forward. I rank this one fifth, because I secretly enjoy reading other people's. I solved this problem for myself by posting one on my blog so that I can just refer people to it as necessary. Of course, since I've done that no one has sent me one, so maybe that wasn't so clever.

#4 The "I'm Doing a Science Project" forward. Seriously, has everyone in the human race not seen this one yet? Add your name to the list...forward so we can see where all it goes...reply to this one poor soul whose inbox rejects everything because it's so full. And so on. Unnecessary waste of resources.

#3 The After You Forward This Message, an Amazing Picture Will Appear on Your Screen! forward. This one really burns my biscuits. How could someone be able to tell you that an amazing picture will appear if they have not clicked send??? Argh! I have VERY little patience for that one.

#2 The If You Forward this to 17 People [Insert Gap, Blockbuster, AOL, or Bill Gates here] will Send You $237! I swear it works! foward. Come ON. Why do people insist on continuing this one? Why? Clearly, NO ONE is going to send you money. They're just not. My favorite one is the Bill Gates one because they allude to the fact that there is magical software embedded in the message and that is how Bill Gates will know where to send your money. Riiiiiiiiiiiight. MmmmOHkay! And I've got some beach property in Arizona for ya.

#1 The If You Don't Forward this to 35 of Your Closest Friends, You Will Die in 3 Days forward. Other versions include an unfortunate bout of luck or that you might contract a severe form of leprosy. I just don't like forwards that threaten my well-being. First of all, I've never sent one of those on and I'm still doing just fine. Second of all, that's just mean! Why would you send that to a friend?

Now out of all of this, the worst thing of all is the person who forwards things not only to friends and family, but - in a workplace - includes that "all staff" feature to the list. That's just plain unprofessional. The only thing worse are the people who Reply All to the entire staff over the most inane things. In our school it's always something like this: Message 1: "I'm looking for a copy of the book "Holes." Messages 2-14, always Reply All: "I have one you can use!" Message 15 (Reply All, naturally): Thanks to everyone who replied! I got the book from _____. Thanks! Message 16, Reply All: You're welcome!! ARGH!!!