After much consideration, I have decided that the Millennium Bug is our number one suspect in the death of common courtesy.
Back in 1999 the Millennium Bug, aka Y2K, caused mass hysteria. The world was going to end! No holiday was allowed over the Christmas and New Year period! Computers were not going to be able to recognise the new clock! They would see 00 and think it was 1900! Whoa! I want to go forward, not back in time.
Did common courtesy die with the Millennium Bug?
Obituary
Common courtesy was born in a time long ago, and died after being bitten by the Millennium Bug sometime during the rise of emails. RIP common courtesy
For some of you, you will never know what it was like to have to wait for the postman. If you missed him in the morning you could open the front door on an evening to find a pile of letters on the mat. Hopefully full of things that brought you joy, but let’s face it, there were days when all it contained were bills!
Now this is going to age me, but, back in the day, if you wanted to apply for a new job you did so by ringing the Company in question, and asking for an application form. Once this arrived, you applied in your best hand-writing, then put your application in the post and waited.
With today’s technology you don’t have to do that. It is an instant world. Colleagues get upset if they don’t get a reply from the recipient straight away. They don’t even give thought to the fact that the recipient might not have picked it up. God forbid they have taken the day off and not checked their emails.
Back in the day, you used to apply for a job and, success or failure, you would always get a letter back in the post. If not successful you would be thanked for your interest in the role and the Company, and wished all the very best for your future career. You felt like they really wanted you to do well.
Postage is a service provided by the Royal Mail that costs you money to use. Emails are immediate and are free. It is funny how you can get loads of marketing from the Company you have just applied to work for, but you can’t get one simple email to thank you for your interest in wanting to work for them!
How many jobs have you spent days and hours wondering if it has been received? Some are great and you get an auto reply to say they have received it. But then you are still left wondering when are they going to get back to you about it. There was no mention on the site that if you didn’t hear from them after two weeks you were unsuccessful, so let’s just wait, patiently. Isn’t that what us Brits are good at, being patient?
Checking my outbox recently I realised I had applied for 25 jobs, even offered my services for FREE ten times in return for work experience, but find that I’m floating, floating in the internet black hole just waiting for common courtesy to reply to me. But I learn fast! The world has changed and no one actually gives a shit that you are waiting. They just press delete instead of reply. Is it too much to ask these employers and recruitment companies to reply? It might even keep you actually liking them and willing to re-apply to them again when another vacancy comes up.
Today we just flood these vacancy posts with our CV’s, not really ticking all the requirement boxes as we are desperate to just get an acknowledgement. If the email postman was to deliver us a thanks, but no thanks email, then maybe these people wouldn’t be so bogged down with applicants just chucking their CV at anything and everything.
Could we see the resurrection of our old friend common courtesy? I truly hope so.
Are you a victim of the common courtesy death? Share you job application stories with me.
Tracy x