Return To Sender

Recently, I've been getting a lot of mail with a lot of bad news. You know, the bills, the reservist callups, bank statements (not bad news but just looking at the monetary value saddens me), etc. One thing I've noticed about all these letters I've been getting, they all sign off with " This is a computer generated document. No signature is required."

Now before you read on, exercise your brain and examine this statement carefully, focusing on the intricate meaning and ramifications of this statment.

You will realise slowly that this statement is a Big Bag of Utter !&%$%^# BULLCRAP.

I mean come on, do readers really question if the document is really a computer generated document? Could it possibly be a very nicely stencilled hand-drawn piece of work? And the sucker punch comes next: because it is a computer generated document therefore no signature is required?!!? What relation does computer generation have to do with signatures? Last I heard, a signature represented sincerity and authenticity.

This statement attempts to treat its readers as fools. It would be even better if they signed off as:
"This is a computer generated document, in black ink, printed by a printer on a piece of white paper, that was made from wood and THEREFORE, no signature is required."

Now I have a theory how this nonsense all came about and it has to do with bad news. Notice all the letters with good news such as, "You have WON in our lucky draw!" and "You have tax relief for the rest of your life!", are always signed off with big hearty signatures. There used to be a time when the bad-news letters were signed off, albeit with somewhat smaller, less conspicuous signatures. The people who signed them off were oftentimes a certain manager who was in charge.

Now what happened then was that the people who received these bad news, in their I'm-pissed-off-someone-better-explain-this-shit-to-me mood would call the signatory up to ask him or her to explain this shit. After a while the manager got really irritated with these calls and so did what all managers are paid to do, and that is to order his subordinate to sign the letters instead. Naturally, of course, what happens next is what they call in management-speak, work delegation, or what we commonly know as "let my underlings handle it".

So now we come down to the lowest order in the company hierarchy. This poor employee, we can imagine, was stuck with all these letters to sign, knowing that even before the ink dries, people will be calling him up asking about their 'shit'. Suddenly, a spark of genius struck him(which occurs often when people are in work-stress) and he realised that if he passed on this reponsibility to the COMPUTER, no one would be able to complain to it!

So then it was that the "This is a computer generated document. No signature is required." was born. Now of course we can all see the root cause for this nonsense; it is laziness. So next time you get a letter that proclaims this, return the letter back and ask: "I know this is a computer generated document, but who generated it using the computer?"

That'll teach the lazy asses.

Oh and by the way, this blog entry is a computer generated document.

No signature is required.