Generalized Automatic Email Response
UPDATE: Thank you all so much for the wonderful responses to this post on Twitter, which I will appreciate so much after never reading them. I have been having a lot of trouble managing my email. This causes some people who email me to get very upset. I was thinking I would try to automate the response so as to leave people who email me smiling, happy, satisfied, and in love with me. Here goes:
Thank you for your wonderful email – hearing from you is one of the best things to happen to me today.
Allow me to elaborate further:
1. If you are an automatic mass mailing to a huge number of people, THEN:
- I will never read your email.
- That’s OK, because you will never read this reply.
- Almost everyone else on your list will respond likewise.
2. If I don’t know you, and you are asking me for help or advice on something, THEN:
- I love what you're doing! You are great!!
- Please read the part of my writings where I argue the aid of poorly informed strangers is often not very helpful.
- This applies very much to the likelihood that I would be of any use to you whatsoever.
3. If I do know you, but somehow I have failed to answer your previous email, it is because:
- I hate you.
- I am an arrogant prima donna jerk who is ignoring you.
- I am disorganized, absent-minded, forgetful, and indecisive, and so have already forgotten whether I answered you already, what the answer was, and what the answer should have been, and I’m really sorry and always will be.
- The only correct answer in this case is (c)
4. If you invited me to something very noble and honorable, and I have failed to respond, it is because:
- Consider possibilities (a) through (c) in 3 above.
- The only correct answer in this case is (c)
Thanks again for your lovely email! Please write again soon!