[T3] Pet Peeve

[Jim Adney]

Okay, I've got a pet peeve that I need to vent about. This is not directly Type 
3 related, but it relates to all the VW Type 3 work I do for people.

Perhaps you've heard this story. It's a conversation between an art instructor 
and one of his/her students.

    Instructor: You've done a nice job on this painting, but what is the RG 
    down here for?

    Student: Those are my initials, R. G.

    Instructor: Oh, I see. So Picasso signs his paintings "Picasso" and 
    Rembrandt signs his paintings "Rembrandt", but everyone knows who 
    RG is?

    Student: Uhhh, well, at least I knew who this was....

So the lesson here is that just because a nickname/alias means something 
to you doesn't mean that it is also immediately recognizable to the rest of the 
world. Suppose I have a friend named Bill Bailey, but Bill likes to send his 
email out with the name "VW Man." Bill thinks this is a cool nickname that 
he'd like to be known as.

This all seems fine until VW Man emails me about some parts he's sending 
me, but when I get parts from Bill Bailey I can't find his emails to figure out 
what he wants me to do with them. There's no way for me to find his emails.

The lesson here is twofold, and I hope it's clear:

1) I can find your previous emails much easier if they come with your name 
on them.

2) If you send me parts to be worked on, please include a note. A printout of 
one of our emails is a really good start.

Finally one other point: I had a cousin named Steve who sent his emails out 
just under "Steve." It would have made it much easier to separate his 
messages from the other Steves if he had included his last name, too. Early 
on, I probably deleted some of his messages without reading them because I 
didn't realize that this was a Steve I knew. A LOT of spam these days comes 
from first name only addresses.

Thanks for reading. End of rant.  ;-)

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Jim Adney, jadney at vwtype3.org
Madison, Wisconsin, USA
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