What Is It With People Who Don't Reply?
Ok. Pet peeve mode here... What is it with people who are supposed to be friends, yet don't reply to calls or emails?
It takes me a HUGE amount of self-control to not send off a final email or phone call saying "You know what? I'm done. See ya around." I just tend to wonder what the deal is... did I do something to annoy somebody (can't wait for the comments on THAT one), or is it some wierd personality issue on the side of the person I've contacted?
I forward joke-type emails EXTREMELY rarely... almost never as a matter of fact, but of course there are folks that just love doing that for some reason. I've even received one of those emails rationalizing that behavior by saying "At least I'm thinking of you enough to send you this." Right... me and 50 other people that you cut and paste into the "To:" field in Outlook. What I find particularly enjoyable is receiving one of those from someone I haven't had a conversation with in a really long time, replying to that email with a personal note and never hearing back. That is until the NEXT chain email, which tells me just how much that person was thinking of me.
Do any of you just not reply to personal emails sent to you on a regular basis? Sure, it might take me a few days, maybe even a week if my Inbox and schedule are particularly swamped, but I always try to respond to a one on one personal email. Heck, this is even transferring over to phone calls. I'll leave a message with someone and I'll never hear back from them.
Of course the other thing that really kind of gets to me is folks who are polite when you do happen to catch them on the phone, saying how glad they are you called and such, but God forbid they ever pick up a phone to give you a call. Same thing when you happen to run into them... it's like you're their best bud ever, but outside of the coincindental meeting, you may as well have fallen off the planet.
And the same goes for Christmas cards as far as I'm concerned. Don't hear from someone all year and then you get either:
1. A card with nothing on it except "Merry Christmas" and a couple of signatures.
or
2. A four page newsletter with no personal note.
Tell me: Why even bother?