Thank You for Not Answering
I know I don’t offer much – I’m no Tom Cruise or Tom Thumb, fame and fortune does not blow doors open for me. I need to actually prise them open, force them sometimes, dislodge them. I also realise that the issue here is this: I require something from you. It may be a review, a favour, distribution, a place on your shelves, something along those fevered lines.
The reason why I want that something from you? Most probably because you’re in the position to give it to me, to progress my views/life/standing/position/company. Progression depends on you, Dear Sir or Madam, and I, the horrible little shit that I am, burden you with it. I’m sorry, if I could do everything I would, because I certainly don’t mean to inconvenience you. I know full well that you’re far too busy to deal with someone like me. Still, I harbour Romantic hope that people are essentially noble creatures, that the nobility of spirit will rise up above self-interest. I am also naïve and far too young to have played a hand in the old white man’s game (publishing).
Unfortunately, I have yet to discover the elixir of everlasting life. Therefore I require an answer sometime soon, ideally before my hundredth birthday. Touch wood, my eyesight and mental functions are still in order by the time of your reply. Don’t misunderstand me, though, I don’t mean to rush you, to stress or bug you. Take it easy, I don’t expect you to answer when you’re having your lie-in or are out clubbing with your mates.
I ask for a lot, but what would really please me is if you took the time and effort to find out who I am or what I do before you dismiss me. Perhaps copy and paste my name so you spell it right, or read the descriptions on our world wide website before you ask me what it’s all about. Yes, more obscene suggestions, I apologise for overstepping my place. I must learn to be ever so thankful with my standing in the gutter.
I’m no saint, I may be a few days late in responding to a submission or two, but I promise you I’ll get there. I do feel shame and guilt if I’m late. I am very much aware of what it’s like to submit and be treated like cow dung. So if I break that promise feel free to bang my e-door. Dear friends, it’s hard when you have the choice of letter, phone, email, Facebook or text messaging, amongst many forms of communication, and so I expect nothing resembling a true exchange of feeling or expression. What is there to say anyway? If it doesn’t pay, there is no need.
Tags: answering to emails, bt, communication, mass communication, positions of responsibility, publishing, submissions
Dear Bogdan Tiganov,(I’ll skip to first names later, if I may)
I first discovered your site in December 2010, when a friend of mine recommended it to me via Facebook. I sent you my “Hello,” submitted some texts and heard back from you guys about my inquiry some months later, in mid February this year, if memory serves me well. Relatively late by your standards – as posted at the time on your site, but your answer did come. And was well taken, at that.
Now, guys and gals, my little “knock-knock” response to your blog post, Bogdan, is here to pinpoint two tiny issues accompanying many similar ones on virtually endless personal complaint lists on and off line:
1) that you are not alone, in that each of us is going through a similar “Where’s my answer when I need it?” experience. Indeed, it does sound vaguely familiar to most of us out here/there. Bells ringing. Really? That many? and
2) that you, just like each one of us, are, ultimately speaking, left alone with your dissatisfaction.
What’s there to be done? Act, react, respond, not respond?
I don’t know about you, guys and gals, but “no answer” has never stopped me from sending and re-sending my answers “Hello”-s, or “How are you?”-s.
On the other hand, any honest blogger has the freedom to vent, if he so pleases, therefore you are rightfully entitled to it, Bogdan. Everybody likes an honest, noble blogger. Keep on doing what you’re doing!
By the way, I’ll take some time – which implies, I confess, a rather vague, but genuinely interested “some time in the future” – to check out your blogroll, in search for other noble, honest bloggers.
All the best to you, Bogdan, noble bloggers and honest readers!