For the last few days, I've been receiving email that says something like this:
Presente.-
Los saludos muy cordialmente, adjunto mi curriculum vitae para su evluacion y aprobacion para el cargo de recepcionista. donde explico mi experiencia laboral y los conocimientos adquiridos para poder trabajar en su empresa.
A la espera de su aceptcion y una respuesta positiva me despido muy agradecida.
atte:
...uh...
I thought it was spam. So I marked it spam and went on with my life. I seriously gave it no thought.
Until today.
I realized these were job applicants.
Ah shit.
I know what it's like to look for jobs. The economy was only a tiny bit better when I graduated from college than it is now. I went hungry. And these folks are from... uh... Bolivia. They just want a secretarial job.
>>Prepare the justification<<
Justification for rudeness #1: I don't speak Spanish. It's pathetic, I know, but I don't. I'm made a few valiant runs at it but my Spanish sucks.
Justification for rudeness #2: I mean seriously, if you get as much email as I do, you would mark it spam too.
Okay.
Okay.
Even I hear the entitlement in my internal voice. While it maybe true that I receive a lot of email, it doesn't justify bouncing people's email to spam.
BUT WHAT IF IT'S SPAM!?!?!?!?!?
Hmm.
Finally, I decided to send each of them a note saying they had the wrong email address.
I dragged my entitled self over to Translate.Google.com and came up with this:
Hola, Lamento informarle que usted tiene la dirección de correo electrónico incorrecta. Buena suerte en su búsqueda de empleo! Bendiciones, Claudia
or some approximation of I regret to inform you that you have the wrong email address.
It took me approximately 3 minutes.
So I wonder, why is it so hard to be polite in modern society?
I'm so afraid of 'setting myself up' for spam or hacking or all things evil, that I'd rather be rude than simply be polite.
I'm not talking world love or whatever.
I'm talking a common politeness. "I'm sorry, you have the wrong number" or whatever.
(Of course, I recently had a phone run in with a drug dealer - me trying to be polite and them wondering what the hell was wrong with me - but that's another story.)
Anyway, that's my Monday.
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