I hear a lot of people yapping on the net about SPAM. I think they are whiners that have forgotten the simple times of a few years ago.

Can you imagine in the 60’s a Federal panel to create a database of businesses that sends out too much mail? We all used to get a stack of envelopes in our mail box. We all used to open our “snail mail” over a waste paper basket. It took about ten minutes a day to “sort” our mail and round file the stuff we didn’t even want to open in this manner.

Since then, the “there ought to be a law” culture that has grown up in the last few decades that wants a big brother government agency to eliminate all our problems before they reach our front door, has descended into a cesspool of irresponsibility. We want an automatic program that scans all our emails and decides for us if the information is important to us or not. Major companies have sprung up to take away our responsibility to make a decision for ourselves.

Unless a company has declared themselves to be spammers, they are NOT. We can recognize the actual spammers. They send out 30 copies of the same email within seconds of each other and use a slightly different email address on every one. This organization feels so bad about what they are doing that they shout out “I AM A SPAMMER” to everyone.

Everyone else is just trying to reach out to as many potential new customers as possible to expand their market share. Can you imagine someone complaining to Congress because Coca-Cola had their signs everywhere? This same person probably gets irritated every time he sees an ad for Ford. Make sure you know the difference because it may cost you in the long run.

This reminds me of a cartoon I saw years ago. It was a picture of a tent in what I presumed to be Alexander the Great’s Era. Inside the tent an aide was trying to introduce Alex to a visitor outside and Alex was saying that he didn’t have time to talk because he had to win a big battle today or his empire might crumble. Alex then headed out of his tent to lead his men into hand to hand combat. Outside the other end of his tent was a wagon with a salesman standing by to show Alex a Gatling Gun.

So before we all fall into the same trap, recognize that in this era of rapidly advancing technology a new weapon that we all need is sitting just outside our business. Those who take the time to inspect and make their own decisions will inevitably win in the long run.

Get out of bed thirty minutes earlier and work through your emails every day looking for your new weapon.

Thomas A. Alston