If someone spends a time writing you a letter, and does so above and beyond the call of duty or their job, then it's an act of kindness and a brief "thank you" is called for - at least in my book. In times gone by, that meant scribbling a note on a piece of paper, putting a stamp on it and popping it in the post, or picking up the phone and making a quick call. But these days, with nearly all my correspondence being on line, it's even easier and even cheaper. It costs nothing but a couple of minutes of someone's time to say "Thank you".

Sadly, there's a number of people out there who don't, I've surmised, even think of acknowledging help and advise given. I'm afraid that I can even see something of a trend in my incoming mail box and make an educated guess as to which ones are unlikely even come back with the minimal of courtesys - and they're NOT necessarily the ones you would expect either! However, there are lots of exceptions to every trend and I will continue to go on answering even the errant groups; I'm more easily surprised by any politeness shown, and I often learn things as I research my answer.

As I wrote this piece, I did a search back through the blog looking for "rude old people". I was thinking of an incident in Torquay where a sprightly pensioner couple forced my stepson off the pavement and into the track of oncoming cars, acting as if they owned the road. And what I came up with was the cow (sorry - that's unfair to cattle) who queue jumped on the Geek Cruise. The reason I'm seething today is that I took time out to research and answer a woman who wrote with a proud "I am 70 and" in her email asking for help ...
(written 2006-02-11 07:18:45)

Commentator

says ...

John Moylan:

Funny you mention this Graham. Last week my PC failed, the BIOS died completely and was left with metal box, nothing else. Seeing as the box was 2 years old I rang the tech support dept of the small manufacturer I bought it from to ask some advice. (expecting nothing) They organised a courier for the next day, chased the courier when they claimed they had been but no one was in (I was, all day!) and two days later my machine was back with me, all under warrenty! I rang the company today to ask for the owner/MD and a very suspicious receptionist was asking all sorts to try and filter me out. When I got through to thank the owner to praise the individual who went "beyond the call of duty" to help me I was met with a very stunned company owner. Apparently people only rang him to complain! I personally always respond to excellent service this way and perversly delight in the reaction from company owners. In the *few* occasions where I'v come across an employee of a company that has done the company proud I make a point of letting the owner know that they have an employee worth keeping, and hopefully spurring them on to continue thier great work. By all means edit this if you wish Graham, your probably aware I have no affiliation with the company but I will be buying another PC from http://www.dnuk.com/ Hope your all well. John (comment added 2006-02-17 01:10:28)

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MP face to face
A fond memory of Sir Freddie
It costs nothing to say THANK YOU
Perl/Tk real time display
Should we cruise around the world?
Storing a regular expression in a perl variable
The magic of -textvariable
Add a friendly front end with Tk
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