The Sheer Panic Over A Mild Inconvenience

More common among the affluent, oddly, but pervasive more than we admit.

As I’ve gotten older, one thing that’s consistently amazing to me is how people get completely out of whack and out of sorts related to things that are, at best, a mild inconvenience. I also am guilty of this, so I am not throwing stones from a glass house. I know my own flaws. Let me walk you through one example.

About a month ago, I was messing around with some of my Google Contacts, creating lists and seeing what functionality existed there in the effort of getting more work down the road from someone. I created one kinda off-shoot list and I accidentally sent an email to about 264 people. Most people just ignored it, which is what it seems a rational person would do. I had about 5–7 people who replied back saying they would “contact Google about me!” and “report me!” (to some nameless authority). I get that people love to complain about their emails, and they’re busy (or think they’re busy), but have you ever seen the trash can icon on email clients? It’s pretty easy to delete an email. Heck, mark it as spam and then delete it. Why do you need to write me two paragraphs about how you’re going to report me to someone?

Yesterday morning I was driving to a WeWork and, at one point in the journey, three…