Monday 9 April 2018

What happened to pleases and thank yous?

I like to communicate with people especially outside of social media and I fear the art of communication, the old fashioned way, by writing letters, is a long time dead these days, but that doesn’t stop me from doing it. However I am going to be far more selective in future as to who I send cards, letters and gifts to as I feel this gestures of appreciation, good will and out of care and love are no longer wanted either.

How do I know this? By the lack of response to the physical presence of something turning up through the post that takes, time, care, planning and costs adiitional to the actual gift/card in terms of the time already spent. Compared to the response people will give to a Happy Birthday message left on Facebook, that takes no thought, no planning, no time and of which Facebook will remind you several times a day.

Sending a card through the post or ordering flowers or ensuring a gift arrives in advance has become an accepted thing for me to do. It will just be there, it’s something I always do. But I get absolutely nothing back from it in most cases. It could be said ‘one doesn’t give to receive’ and that is indeed the case, but when I’ve tracked an item at extra cost, received notification it’s been delivered, then wait 3-4 days before I finally contact the person and say ‘hi, did the xxx appear?’I get ‘oh yes it did’

However over those 3-4 days the people who have sent the Facebook messages ‘happy birthday’ have received a ‘like’ or a ❤️ in response. And I’ve had NOTHING/ZERO/ZILCH.

I have no idea why people do this. Maybe it’s because people genuinely don’t see why they should say thank you, they know you’ve tracked the item, therefore you know it’s arrived. Maybe they feel it’s a right, an entitlement, maybe it’s because they’re just so busy they don’t have time in their day to pick up their phone and say ‘hey Suzanne, thanks for the flowers/card/gift that arrived this morning/yesterday. It was really kind of you, the flowers are beautiful’ . Maybe they feel if they do that they’ll be expected to do the same back? I don’t know because when I ask them in several messages that I can see they’ve read, they finally answer with ‘yes, it did arrive’

My feedback suggests, me spending money is expected, me sending cards and arranging gifts to arrive on time is just what I do and there’s absolutely no need to acknowledge receipt or heaven forbid actually say thank you. So from now on, it’s just not happenening.

If you’ve got a good enough excuse why you can’t say thanks, let alone send me a card for my birthday or even send a message in Facebook at the beginning of the day rather than at the end when you realize ‘shit, I best send a message’ then it obviously doesn’t matter to you that much and therefore it doesn’t matter to me either. So I’ll just save myself the stress, the upset and the money and just not bother from now on.

It’s not about my expectations of a gift in exchange, it’s about politeness and good manners and more importantly when you live 1000’s ofmiles away it’s about keeping the avenues of communication open. A two way exchange, a response, not just a thank you or showing gratitude.


14 comments:

  1. I can't believe that people don't say thank you! I think you're definitely right to stop sending things if people can't even acknowledge them with a quick message of thanks. They will probably miss the cards and presents when they stop coming!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. that's what i thought and i wonder how long it will be before someone says something

      Delete
  2. Hi Suzanne, I hear you on this one and it makes me cross to. It seems that FB is an acceptable way of sending loved ones a Happy Birthday or a message for a special time, which I can't get my head around either. And like you said the reciever of FB messages happily replies in an all of 2 seconds show of appreciation... It is also a bugbear I've had with my niece and nephew, to whom I've sent things and not heard anything back. In the past I've sent something small for Easter, but this year I couldn't be arsed either. Like you said it's not giving to recieve as all I would like is a thank you or an acknowledgement.... I also wonder if it's because things I've sent aren't the biggest or shiniest and have to 'compete' with other gifts, but a lot of time and effort goes into sending cards and gifts and sometimes I don't know why I bother!... Deep breath, rant over!

    xx

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. i think a lot for me is that bigger and more expensive gifts are expected because of our lifestyle

      Delete
  3. My middle daughter sends thank you cards in behalf of Ziggy, who is only 1, and I know she will be made to write them herself when old enough. DD1 does not as she says she hated writing thank you letters as a child.
    Every year I sent Christmas presents to my two brothers children and never received a thank you or for that matter anything in return for my children, but that was not why I sent them.
    Possibly what Debbie says is true mine were never the biggest and never competed with anything else they would have got

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. sometimes i think you could be right, people also have high expectations of better and bigger gifts,

      Delete
  4. It used to be called common courtesy and it now as you suggest all too uncommon. I think there will be a huge turn and people will turn away from social media in favour of the more seemingly old-fashioned ways of communicating. Things do have a tendency to come back after neglected too long. I hope you feel better for posting and for seeing the responses too. Thanks for sticking with #BestBootForward

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. i do feel much better having read the comments and have had some great chats online with others on this subject

      Delete
  5. Yes I've had similar experiences in recent years, often the bigger the effort, the less the thanks! A text thanks is fine, but sometimes you never hear anything :(

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. i don't need big thank yous, just acknowledgement sometimes that something has arrived

      Delete
  6. I think it's pretty crazy that people 'rely' on facebook these days to just drop a quick message. To me, taking that time to choose a card and send it much more personal. That's partly why I don't bother with 'bigging up' my birthday on facebook - I don't want people to just pop a message on there for me just for the sake of it. (Likely when they're distracted by a cat meme or something!) #BestBootForward

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I wouldn't mind if there was a bit more communication on FB to be honest, i'm lucky to get anything other than a like sometimes

      Delete
  7. It does seem like manners are long forgotten these days. If anyone ever buys the little man something or sends him money, I always make sure he makes a thank you card which I send for him. And if I receive anything I always say thank you. It's just the polite and gracious thing to do. Thanks for joining us at #TriumphantTales, hope you'll come back again on Tuesday!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. sadly people expect too much for so little in return these days

      Delete

ShareThis