Minor E-noyances

1. Sweet, sappy, way-too-long, meant-to-be-inspirational forwarded emails that end with "if you don't forward this to 20 people, including the one who sent it to you, that proves you don't care."


2. Calling a company, getting their automated phone system, which asks you to enter your sixteen digit account number followed by the pound sign, then your five-digit zip code, then the last four digits of your Social Security number, then when a human gets on the line, having him or her ask for all the same information.


3. Automated phone systems that try too hard to sound human, especially ones that say, "You may say your response at any time; I don't mind being interrupted." It's a machine, for pity's sake! I prefer machines to sound like machines--monotone and metallic.


4. People who forward jokes to me on email (most of which I've heard before and many of which I don't take time to read), then ask me three weeks later, "did you get that email I sent you?"


5. When someone sends me a serious email, and I decide to wait to respond until I can collect my thoughts, then I forget all about it until the person asks, "did you get that email I sent you?" How embarrassing!