I have so many complaints about my email system these days. Yahoo has been hosting my account from many many years back originating with Frontier, and finally decided to fully adapt it to Yahoo. As the format hadn't changed in the previous years, I didn't think to much of the announcement. My address wasn't changing. What's the fuss?
Then I started using it.
Start with the layout: The list of what's there takes up a chunk of the left side of the screen. When opened, there's a tiny middle column with the actual email inside it. Note that it's never reformatted so I can read/view the whole thing without zig-zagging left to right for every partial single line of text! I was familiar with the phenomenon for people sending very wide emails. I could decide if it were worth the bother to read it all.
Photos are even worse, unless you think viewing small chunks at a time can give a sensible view of the contents. By the time I get from left to right and top to bottom, I have to go start over in hopes of seeing what the actual picture was, especially if there's something that was supposed to be funny about it. Their alternative is to make them all thumbnails, where a child's head is the size of a pin head - and not even a hatpin's head. (Anybody remember hatpins?) Oh sure, I can expand it... to about double. So then the kid's head actually looks the size of a hatpin head. Whoopee! Is that child smiling? Crying? Holding up an award? Sticking out their tongue? And by the way, more than one kid means I have to ask which kid I'm supposed to care about in a photo?
It's not just that my laptop fits my lap instead of overlapping it (no pun) by inches on either side. Mine is light, easy to carry, doesn't cut off my circulation like one 10 pounds heavier might. So the screen is modestly small as a result. But my email carrier has decided to fill the right side of my screen with a huge ad. Did I ever ask for an ad? Do I mind terribly if it crosses the bottom of my screen instead, allowing me to actually read my own emails instead of having to bounce them a round every two inches? No, and no.
The email content is always prefaced by a blurb telling me what it says. Because if I can't read my own email I can read the summation? Because I can pre-decide it the hassle is worth it? Because I'm too stupid to understand what the sender wrote but I can figure it out from what AI wrote about it? Oh yeah, there's a little blurb mentioning the summary was written by AI. Trust me, it's not an improvement. It focuses in on a word or two as being the most relevant in the message, when often it's not relevant whatsoever. If that isn't enough of a time killer, it follows that alleged summation by asking if it was helpful. If I choose to acknowledge their query, I can click on a thumb, up or down, take my pick. Either choice will require filling in a form saying why I clicked that one.
I just wanted to read my own email! I don't need your G*D* Survey! Just go the F*** Away! Forever!
I have found all kind of ways to express how it's not helpful, not wanted, not within my time availability, an impediment to my space functionality, and always followed by my very sincere request that they stop doing it! Apparently the problem AI has with its attempts to understand what people are actually trying to communicate to me is even exceeded by it's inability to understand my reaction to it! So far, unlike Alexa's programming, it hasn't taken to scolding me, however politely, for certain word choices. I might begin to understand it has some potential for usefulness if it demonstrated that much comprehension, but really, I just want it to go the F*** away! (Did I forget to say, "Please"? Well screw you! Sideways!)
Even without all those issues, if they went away there'd still be an abundance of STUPID in my email. For example, we order a lot of things to be delivered to us so we don't have to drive all over the place. In response we get a lot of emails, keeping us informed about where in the progress to arrival any particular package allegedly is. That changes per package with each progressive email. There's the normal stuff: got your order, got your money, putting it together, shipped, tracking label to follow it, expected ETA. Then there's Change in ETA, which is always about a delay, never about getting here faster, of course.
OK, there was that one time... but they changed their minds and it was even later than before.
So far there's not much stupid in all that. But one sent Saturday raised my eyebrows. A plant would be two days later than promised, and it's revised 3 day delivery schedule for today would now be for Friday.
The 22nd of July.
Got your calendars handy? Today is Monday the 21st. In what year will a July Friday be the 22nd?
C'mon now, this is a live plant. I really do want it to arrive in that condition! You know, STILL ALIVE!
I was already giving sincere thought to changing my email address to a totally different carrier. This plant won't be that final straw, but it just adds charcoal and vinegar-preserved spider topping on the email frustration.
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