Friday, July 3, 2009

And then I laughed and laughed...


Okay, here's the thing. For all of you out there who might think you have what it takes to become a member of an elite search and rescue organization, that regularly will put their lives on the line "so that others might live", stop yourselves before you sit down and draft your e-mail to them, would you? Remember first and foremost, that if you honestly expect someone to believe that you can grapple with the theory and mechanics of powered flight, let alone applying these skillfully while under extremely adverse conditions, you should at least be able to convince them that you can read and write in basic English. Not e-mail shorthand, not in emoticons, not in ebonics. In English...

Witness if you will, the literary gem that we received this morning:

"hey my name is eric and im very intrested in becoming a hellicoter rescue piolet and im wondering if ur collge offer tht or do i have to go some wher else plzz email me thk u".

To be honest, I am going to say that if I owned a hamster that had a steel plate in it's head, I'll bet I could teach it to do a far better job of texting than this. I can also state with some authority that in no Coast Guard radio transmission, will you ever use the term: "Fo' shizzle...".

I'm afraid the author of this particular e-mail is not quite ready to quit bagging groceries. I look at spell-check as being an insult to an even moderately educated human being. I do not believe in it's use. Every so often you may find a typo in this blog and I can live with that, though God knows I do spend some time editing. For as much as it pains me to say this, if you're sending out feelers for info on employment opportunities to the feds and you're simply either too lazy to re-read what you've just written or are actually incapable of spelling... USE YOUR SPELL-CHECK!!!

That way you just might dupe them into booking you for an initial selection appointment. From that point however, you're on your own... In the end, maybe such people would be better served if they simply practised the phrase: "Do you want fries with that?"

No comments: