Martin DyckmanSarcasm alert!
The election campaign was not altogether a disaster. It revealed that I have more friends than I could have imagined.
Michelle. Barack. Joe (as in Biden.) Wendy (as in Davis.) Robert (as in Redford.) Al (as in Franken.) Harry (as in Reid.)
Even Scarlett. As in Johansson.
And dozens more — mostly from people I had never heard of in places I rarely if ever had thought about.
They’re friends, surely, because all of them addressed me by first name in their e-mails, sometimes several times a day.
That, I have always believed, is a familiarity reserved for people who are friends or, at a minimum, acquaintances.
So they must be friends, right?
A few of those nice people asking for money do know me. I reported on the careers of Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Charlie Crist, and when I met Sen. Kay Hagan at a fund-raiser, she was delighted to hear that I had covered her uncle Lawton Chiles.
Do I believe, though, that they personally crafted their messages?
Not for a minute.
They were written by professional campaign fund-raisers who instructed their computers to address everyone by first names.
This can have ludicrous results. A judge I know who could not contribute to or endorse any campaign got a message addressed something like this: Dear jud97Fl21. The computer thought his e-mail address was his given name.
Enough, already.
Call me old-fashioned.
Call me cranky.
Even call me a curmudgeon, if you like.
But few things offend me as much as being addressed by my first name by people whom I have never met. I wouldn’t presume to treat them with such contempt — yes, it’s a phony familiarity that is condescending and contemptible.
It’s against all the conventions that are (or used to be) taught in etiquette courses. It would be unforgivable in France, Germany, or Britain.
As one of the songs puts it in the musical “Chicago,” what ever happened to class?
I resent it when it’s a fund-raising call or sales pitch that slipped by caller ID.
I resent it no less when it’s an e-mail or snail mail on behalf of some cause I am thought likely to support.
I resent it even when it’s the nurse announcing that the doctor will see me now. They say that this protects patient privacy, but I don’t care. It disrespects the patient.
This presumption of familiarity represents, to me, a slackening of an important — and ancient — social convention: the principle of respect for others.
I have to admit it went on even in the campaign for which I did some phone banking. I heard others in the room asking for “John” or “Mary,” or whatever the first name on the screen happened to be.
It wasn’t my place to correct them, but I did mention it to the supervisor. He seemed unimpressed.
So maybe I am much too old-fashioned. But that’s how I prefer to be, and will remain.
The obvious problem for those managing the mass solicitation campaigns is that while it can reasonably (but not always) be assumed that a masculine-sounding name deserves the title “Mister,” it can’t be guessed whether a female should be addressed as “Miss,” “ Mrs.,” or even “Ms.”
So the programmers must figure that the safer bet is to use first names. They may even have research data to support that. The better solution, though, is to ask for or address people by their full names.
Here’s something for them to put in their computers:
From now on, I will delete or discard unread any fund-raising missive that addresses me with improper familiarity.
The same goes for the telephone calls.
Here’s an insider’s tip for those who felt like ripping out their phones during the past several months:
You can put an early stop to it by telling the first canvasser who calls that your mind is already set on either their candidate or their other side’s. If you say “undecided,” you will hear from them again and again and again.
Then, to cut off the “Have you voted yet?” calls, take advantage of the first day of early voting. The campaigns get those lists daily.
Meanwhile, I’m thinking of trying to telephone my new friend Scarlett.
Do you suppose I might get through?
Martin Dyckman is a retired associate editor of the St. Petersburg Times. He lives near Waynesville, North Carolina. Column courtesy of Context Florida.
