My New Autoresponder
Dear You,
Your rude, insensitive, and/or pompous e-mail message has triggered this pseudo autoresponder. You must be under the assumption that:
(a) You're the only other person on the planet.
(b) You're the only person on the planet who e-mails me.
(c) I have all the time in the world to pay attention to you.
(d) I have no life outside of Outlook 2000.
(e) I have no other function in life than to answer your questions.
(f) I'm the only person on the planet who can answer your questions.
(g) Search engines don't work.
(h) I type one thousand words per minute.
(i) I don't have one thousand other people who demand my attention.
(j) I get paid to take care of you in my “off” hours.
(k) I don't sleep.
If you haven't realized it by now: I'm human, just like you. Unfortunately, I can't personalize every message that hits my Inbox. If this upsets you to the point where you feel like berating me once more, I'll never look at anything from you again. I'm a nice guy, but I don't appreciate getting scolded for doing something that I didn't even have to do in the first place.
Sincerely,
Chris Pirillo
GoToAssist lets you provide support to your friends or customers even when they aren't at home. By using the unattended support feature, you can fix their software issues, install their updates, or nearly anything else you would normally do on-site.
10 Comments
Anonymous
February 22nd, 2002
at 6:00pm
Chris, I got an Uncle Guido, give me some emails and my Cousin Kevin can find out their address for him. Then my Grandpa George will excuse Uncle Guido and the loop starts again. Just trying to do my part.
Anonymous
February 22nd, 2002
at 6:38pm
Well said, Chris.
Anonymous
February 22nd, 2002
at 6:42pm
Ah, the dangers of leaving a bot in charge…
Two years ago, one of the major ISPs stupidly assigned me a PRIMARY e-mail address that formerly belonged to this guy named Earl West. Well, Earl has some seriously nasty internet tastes which have my Adult Sender ignore rule very busy with deletes. I just thank God I don't use Outlook and its faboo HTML preview, or my cache would be littered with pics of things I didn't know was humanly possible.
Occasionally, I get a message like “We haven't seen you in forever, did you forget your password?” What's amazing is that Earl uses the same password everywhere Earl goes.
Three weeks ago, I got an e-mail from Covad's bot gushing with regrets about Earl's decision to discontinue his DSL. I cordially explained that I wasn't Earl… but I “forgot my password”.
Did I mention that Earl uses the same password everywhere he goes?
Anonymous
February 22nd, 2002
at 7:17pm
Just ignore the morons, Chris. There are too many of them and they're not worth the time.
Anonymous
February 22nd, 2002
at 7:30pm
Gretchen's Thoughts on the matter: http://gretchen.pirillo.com/archives/week_2002_02_17.html#000453
Anonymous
February 22nd, 2002
at 7:32pm
I don't see what the guy's problem was, he asked for a URL, you gave him a URL. So what if it's “blunt” what's he want a ten page letter to get a URL??? More than a sentence or two would be overkill.
Anonymous
February 22nd, 2002
at 8:10pm
I enjoy getting an email back. One line, a couple of words is fine, but even I realize that my hundred or so emails (incoming) a day is nothing compared to what “visable” people like Chris or Leo Laporte get. That's why I try to email them ony when I have something really important to say. I appreciate that both Chris and Leo make every attempt to respond, but realize that time is a factor and am just satisfied knowing that they probably did read it personally, which is more than most “”visable” people do. Of course, it's still a thrill to get back any non-automated reply even a couple of words like Chris usually sends me :)
Anonymous
February 22nd, 2002
at 8:48pm
I appreciate every :) from Chris
Anonymous
February 23rd, 2002
at 6:34pm
Totally .. Chris's :)'s rule!
Just let them bounce off Chris, they aren't worth your time.
-Jeff
Anonymous
February 25th, 2002
at 1:31pm
I appreciate every bit of help I get from Chris — the auto-responder is great (!) especially for those who don't appreciate assistance.