On every birthday, I get about 200 birthday greetings - some from people whose names leave me scratching my head. All on WhatsApp. 2-3 take the time to call and rub it in by asking for my age. Almost always nobody sees me face to face to share a warm wish.
Some people wish me birthday on New Years - alerted by a dormant Facebook profile where I didn’t even care to put in my real birthday. Facebook guessed that my birthday was on Jan 1 (how convenient). If they have the technology to recognise faces, dont they have the technology to detect our birthdays correctly, I wonder!
Some wish me on birthdays of another person with my name, lets call this guy Ram. And I get 5-10 of these on his birthdays.
My sons birthday, my daughters birthday, wedding anniversary - repeat!
Some want me to pass on their wishes to my wife on her birthday - if you don’t even have her number - what joy in wishing her! I even have the last Urban Clap plumber’s wife number (before you rush into conclusions - she controls the bank account and hence has the Gpay number) - I wonder if I should wish her on her birthday - if only Android could detect birthdays, and allow me to write a script o wish everybody on my phono book on their birthdays.
And some send wishes to Seetha - the aforementioned Ram’s wife - on her birthday.
WhatsApp, Facebook, LinkedIn - repeat!
Needless to say that I spend a good amount of time on these special occasions thanking these messages. Don’t blame me - Social media is addictive, its hard not to respond. Thankfully, there have been no responses to my thanks messages so far!
Next come common festivals like Independence Day, New Year, Gandhi Jayanthi - A slew of wishes end up cluttering my WhatsApp which immediately spike the data usage so much that I run out of my monthly quota on a single day. I had to become a part time WhatsApp programmer to figure out the options to stop downloading this spam. More amusing are the ones that push their company names on these posts - branding, it seems. Branded - as a spammer!
We have not even started on Diwali, Eid, Christmas and Guru Nanak Jayanthi - I don’t know a single soul who celebrates all these festivals. But apparently everybody else thinks I do.
WhatsApp, Facebook, LinkedIn - repeat!
1 comment:
In this techno driven new age, such flooding wishes are a welcome nuisance. It is little comforting to see that the otherwise work-busy-bees do take the time to greet fellow beings. The trouble is worth accommodating.
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