Stop Sending Me Forwards!!!

[wx247]

I was so frustrated this evening, I created the following post below. It help vent some frustration. Maybe you can get a smile out of it! Feel free to pass it along.




As an educator, I work long hours. I typically spend somewhere around 10 hours in the classroom (not to mention the time I spend working when I come home). As soon as I arrive in the door after a long day at work, I generally check my personal email account. I always anticipate a nice email from a friend who has moved away or a note from a family member. Instead, I get forwards. Not just one or two...or ten. Tonight, for example, I came home to find 15 forwards in my inbox that had collected from this morning.

As much as I would really like for it to happen, Microsoft is not going to send me $250 for every person I forward your message to. Nothing exciting happens when I click on the send key. Your inspirational messages of hope and healing are nice, but I much rather prefer a personal email filling me in on your life and asking me how my day has gone. Oh, and I especially love the 5 forwards today informing me that Barack Obama is a Muslim and he will blow up America as soon as he is elected. I keep waiting for the forward that breaks the news that McCain actually attends KKK meetings in his spare time.

Is it to much to ask that if you want to communicate with me that you actually send me something of value? I think from now on, when I get a forward in my inbox, I am going to respond with the following reply:

Dear Friend,

Since you obviously have enough spare time on your hands that you can send me these 8 forwards in a six hour time frame, maybe you can use your time to check http://www.snopes.com concerning the validity of the emails you are sending. Look at all the nifty things I learned in just 10 short minutes. No Obama is not a terrorist. Yes, Starbucks supports the troops. Despite your email to the contrary, Pepsi has not removed God from "God Bless America" on their 4th of July special edition cans. God will not send down a lightning bolt to strike me if I don't forward this prayer, but I will quit speaking to you if I get another one of these messages with your name attached to it.

Stop Sending Me Forwards!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Love,
Garrett

PS - If you forward this to 15 of your friends within 12 minutes, you will receive the winning Powerball numbers in your mailbox.

[Miss Mary]

LOL!

I for one never read forwards. Sorry, to those that send me forwards but I delete them everytime.

Especially the ones that say bad luck will come if I delete them.....those babies I hit delete so fast, bad luck couldn't find me if it knew where to look.....wait, our area is experiencing blackouts, food shortages, etc. Anyway, don't feel bad Garrett. For some reason people like to do this and I guess I'll never really understand why!

[bvigal]

Wow, I LOVED that letter!!! I've been trying to educate my friends about forwards and scams and urban legends for 15yrs now. It's amazing to me that some of my best girlfriends, all very intelligent women, actually got upset when I tried to explain how those kinds of emails encourage spam, identity theft, DOS attacks, and cost ALL of us money indirectly.*
(*I can explain how that is true, but not writing that essay here.) "What's the big deal?" they would say. I think they were afraid not to forward the chain letters, actually believing something bad would happen to them. I finally just blocked the habitual, non-rehabilitated offenders from my email, and had them use another email address which I don't check that often.

For what it's worth, my one dear girlfriend explained to me, "I don't have time or concentration to write an email, but I can forward something to you that lets you know I'm thinking of you today." I happily accepted that explaination for about 15 months, then when I hadn't gotten one single 'original' word, I told her to knock it off with the forwards. If she hadn't found time to write a line or two in 15 months, I didn't want her "thinking about me" any more.

[HURAKAN]

I hate those forwards!

[O Town]

Great letter Garrett, LOL. Most of them perturb me too. I used to always snoop them and reply with the snoop link.
I think sometimes they believe the email more than snoops, and I hate to seem like a know it all all the time so I just hit delete now. Common sense you would think would tell you that 99% of that crap is B.S.
Like I said I just gave up with trying to school them, and most of it is from my family and friends whom I speak with on a regular basis anyways so no worries with them not writing to me a "real" email. If that was the case I would really be upset too.

[AnnularCane]

OK, so where are the winning Powerball numbers?

I don't know why anybody sends these things, especially on a regular basis. I have yet to meet anyone who actually likes getting these forwards.

[RL3AO]

I haven't gotten the "don't buy gas next tuesday and gas prices will drop $2" email in a while.

[Miss Mary]

Garrett - I know you are very busy grading papers and whatnot, LOL but please update us as to the reaction you are receiving with this forward/joke!

I'm curious...

I received another prayer/chain/request email today. I was chosen because I am special to this person........yep, that baby got deleted before I could finish reading the darn sentence.

I just prefer personal emails - typed for that individual. Of course I know how to type and learned eons ago. My kids are always taking short cuts, etc. when having to type. What a hardship they say.....so sending someone a personal note/email is really the only way I want to communicate. I think I'm pretty old fashioned when it comes to these forwards and I know my opinions are definitely in the minority. But they are a huge waste of time! Let's be very honest here......

So Garrett, save and remember the replies you get back. I'm sure you're receiving all sorts of feedback. LOL

[Brent]

I haven't gotten the "don't buy gas next tuesday and gas prices will drop $2" email in a while.

I hate forwards!!!!!!

[Miss Mary]

Hey here's a thought, so many of these forwards ask that you hit reply......

We could hit reply and type a message each time from the sender:

Please remove me from your forward list!

And if that doesn't work....

Please stop sending me forwards!!!

And again if that doesn't work -

STOP SENDING ME FORWARDS, YOU MORON!!!

Of course that last one is a bit much if the sender is a relative.....then again, it would be a good way to put a sibling or cousin, or friend in their place!

I do think I'm going to try replying and ask to be taken off people's send-lists.

I will let you know if this idea works...I'm not expecting much. LOL

[RL3AO]

[tomboudreau]

What I ended up doing is putting my automatic vacation reply on saying this account is being deleted in 2 weeks and at that time I will no longer be having email access. What people dont know is that I have setup a new account that I will only use for sites that need an email address to gain access to it or for important information. After that 2 week period, I turned that inbox off and now when people send me messages, they get the cannot send to user message. Its amazing how little email that is of any use to me.

[O Town]

What a good picture to attach to your replies Mary!!!!!

[Cryomaniac]

Forwards annoy me. If I get them I send an email back saying "stop sending me this sh--". Sometimes it works for a while lol.

[Brent]

[CajunMama]

Guess what missmary & otown! I just sent you a recipe exchange email But i participated in this one, sending a recipe (actually i sent 2) to the person i was to send it to.

[Miss Mary]

Kathy! How did you know I was thinking of this thread when I got your forward? he he

I guess we get what we ask for? LOL

And to get serious I think I know what bothers Garrett the most, possibly. Some people just send forwards. Never a personal, hello type email. Not even one sentence from that person to you. Just a string of endless forwards.

Kathy - at least you don't do that!!! At least you pepper forwards with personal notes/emails, from time to time. I have a "friend" I used to work with years ago, she has sent me so many forwards by now, I've lost count. I've changed my email address 3 times in oh 12 years. Each time I change it, I send her a personal note, hi Eileen, here's my new email addy. I get nothing in return. Then another forward - so I know she received my email....anyway, at least I think that is what Garrett is saying. Sending only forwards to people is very impersonal!

[O Town]

Guess what missmary & otown! I just sent you a recipe exchange email But i participated in this one, sending a recipe (actually i sent 2) to the person i was to send it to.

LOL, but that one actually makes some sense and is fun.
I like fun, or funny forwards. IE quizs, jokes, games and videos. Its the ones that are total BS or the ones that
tell you to forward to 10 people in the next 3 minutes or the world is going to blow up that I hate.

[Pebbles]

Though I often receive tons of forwards but rarely pass them on. Maybe once or twice a month MAX. And they either have to make me litterally laugh my rearend off for 5 minutes in order to get the 'ok to forward' status.

Chain letters kill me. I hate them darn things.

Only two I think in the past month got forwarded. Both were youtubes.
For those interested they were (first one sent by a MUSLIM family member which made it even funnier):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uwOL4rB-go
and this was forwarded to female friends/family:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-UsLYqQTqE

[artist]

one thing about e-mails that are forwarded is the first originator can be trying to harvest e-mails or anyone of the other hundreds that are receiving them with everyones e-mail that it has been forwarded to attached behind the scenes. I finally sent out an e-mail that if it is that important or funny, please do a copy and paste to those they wish to see it as well as send them out individually as we never know to whom the other person may be sending them out to. Ever noticed that after you recieve some of these forwards you suddenly start receiving more spam in your mail box?