I hate changing e-mail addresses. I hate it so much that I’ve only done it twice in 11 years. The first time was about 7 years ago when I finally got rid of AOL. I was paying for a flippin’ e-mail address, for cryin’ out loud, but I still hesitated to change it because of the hassle. And it was a hassle, believe you me.
When I got rid of AOL and opened a free Gmail account, I vowed never ever again to change my e-mail address. I didn’t take into consideration that I might actually find the love of my life, get married and change my name. (I’ve heard it said that some people even saw pigs in the air…) But it seems that when one vow is taken some previous – and, admittedly, lesser – vows have to be broken.
So I had to change my e-mail address again a couple months ago. And it is still a hassle.
Changing e-mail addresses is like moving. You think you’re prepared and send plenty of notice to those who frequently send you mail, but you spend months afterwards chasing down folks to try to get them to make the change. And you’re never really sure if you’ve missed something important that simply hasn’t reached you.
Unlike when I got rid of AOL, however, I was able to keep my old Gmail address, so it’s comforting to know that I still receive anything sent there. There are one or two “funny” friends, however, who refuse to update their address book. Mainly, I think, to bug me. And, okay, so it’s really just one person. He knows who he is.
So I still have to go into my old e-mail address to forward jokes or personal e-mails to my new address and to clear out the junk. This week has been busy and I’ve neglected the care-and-upkeep of my old e-mail address. I looked at it today and had 52 regular e-mails and 937 junk e-mails. Sheesh!
Instead of simply pressing “delete” today, I decided to re- contact those senders and, depending on who they were, either request that they change my address or ask to be removed from their mailing list. Yes, I’d already performed this arduous task months ago, but evidently Blockbuster.com and Tarot.com really want to send me information about movies I no longer rent and daily horoscopes I no longer read. Even though I told them I wanted to break up, they still send me e-mails. To them I say, “For cryin’ out loud, leave me alone already!”
I wish all websites had a uniform policy on changing or deleting your name from their list. But that would be too easy. Some places have a 1-click removal system. Simple. Some sites allow you to change the address from your old e-mail to your new one on one screen. Also simple.
Other places, however, make you jump through so many hoops and click on so many links that your clicking finger starts cramping. By the time you’re done swearing out an affidavit that YES, you REALLY want to be deleted from their mailing list, you’re frazzled and vow never again to visit their site even if you’d been sort of on the fence about it before. This is one vow that it’ll be no problem keeping!
And I haven’t even addressed the issue of SPAM! Personally, I think it’s a little ridiculous to receive 937 junk e-mails. I rarely open any of these, although once in a great while an actual e-mail from someone I know gets caught in the filter and I have to rescue it. Hard to do because my eyes glaze over as they flit past all the e-mails about prescription drugs I can get online (without a prescription) or the inheritance someone from some foreign country that I’m not related to and have never met has left me.
My new e-mail address rarely receives SPAM – probably because I’ve been a little more judicious when signing up for e-mail newsletters and I don’t just give out my e-mail address willy-nilly anymore.
Ah well. Hopefully this latest attempt to get my old e-mail address off all these lists will work. And all I can say is that Google better never go out of business or I might have to give up e-mailing altogether! Yeah, right. Like I could do without my daily celebrity gossip update!
Oh, and to my dear friend Joe? PLEASE change my e-mail address! It’s not funny anymore...
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