The Three Email Challenge

The experience of growing up online will profoundly shape the workplace expectations of “Generation F” – the Facebook Generation says Gary Hamel – the management guru. Very clearly if you are one of those who believes that you are now with it because you now know how to use email, you do not belong to the Facebook Generation. Dear Gary, you will be happy to know that I am no stranger to Facebook. As someone recently mentioned that you have to be on Facebook (which I am even if it is really tough) to be considered cool.

Many teenagers continue to express deep angst at the enhanced age generation who have now taken over as Facebook users. When a website has like two or even three generations using it simultaneously, it clearly is a message to the youngest of the family to move on and seek online shelter for the homeless someplace else. The young and the young at heart cannot necessarily share the same cool hangout spots. Despite all the developments on the net, none of the social networking sites have found an answer to the Three E-mail Challenge. Put simply it means, with friends it is tough to exchange more than three emails on a subject without running out of steam. Let me explain what this is all about. In the pre-email era, the probability of meeting someone from school or college was remote. You met a couple of them at the airport or maybe if you missed your flight, the way I met Pingy after years. A freak snow storm had left me stranded in a remote town and that’s when I met Pingala Reddy, my class mate from school. While he wasn’t my best friend then, I must confess I really enjoyed meeting him after so many years. Right after I got back I wrote him an email (email no 1) thanking him for his hospitality and how much I had enjoyed meeting Pingy and his family. That I would love to host him and his family when he would visit my part of the woods next.

Pingy wrote back instantly (email no 2) saying he will take me up on my offer for sure. I wrote back (email no 3) that he was welcome to do so any time and that my family would love to meet the Reddy family. This email was followed by silence. The point being that with friends who you meet after years it is impossible to have an email exchange beyond the three. Facebook doesn’t have a solution either.

After many years Pingy wrote another mail (enclosing photo of family vacationing in Spain) and asked me if I was planning another trip to visit him? This was email no 1 of this exchange.

In email 2, I responded that a family vacation in US would break the bank and hence not on the cards unless he offered to fund the trip. Pingy sent a cryptic smiley in email 3 as a response. We haven’t corresponded since. That’s the 3 email jinx

I met Rascal Rusty at Dubai airport last December. He was running to catch a flight but managed to convince me to sign up on Facebook before he rushed off. All the blokes of our class were evidently getting buttonholed into joining this social networking site that all the college kids had discovered a while back. I signed up and promptly added Rusty to my list of friends. I trawled the site to look for more classmates. Slowly I found Joy and Gur there as well. I now had 3 friends on Facebook. The community was growing. The only thing was that I did not quite know what to do after that.

One day I learnt how to write on the Facebook Wall.

Spray can in hand I went and wrote a bold “What’s up?” on all three walls. Joy ignored me. Gur replied “Nothing” and Rusty said that he was traveling for the next 2 weeks to Venezuela and will respond after he is back. The three email challenge has been replaced by the Facebook version of it.

Meanwhile I got a friend request from a person who I could not remember ever having met in my life. I accepted it simply because of the compulsion to not be seen as a boor who would not say hi to a stranger. That’s how Josh became my friend. He had 462 friends on facebook. He was clearly a popular beast. He could well be the next President with such a large number of friends to support him. By now I had discovered how to peek into his photo albums and heck, was I scandalized by some of them. Since he is a friend I will not share with you what I saw beyond gently hinting that Josh has the lifestyle of a rock star if the photos were anything to go by. The next morning I found that he had thrown a sheep at me. Thrown a sheep? Whoa !! What’s that all about. What was I supposed to do at this act of unprovoked violence? Should I throw a knife back to show that I was not to be taken lightly. I thought of asking Rusty, Joy or Gur for advice. Then I remembered that in most murder mysteries lesson no 1 is if someone threatens you, do not broadcast it. So I decided to be discreet. The next morning I found Josh had sent me a patch of green earth. The fellow is finally coming to his senses I thought and wants to make peace. I have decided to keep quiet and see if this fellow is serious about gifting me real estate.  With the falling prices of real estate this fellow probably thinks it a bargain to pacify me with a nice 4 acre plot. Hmmm… I wonder if I should forgive him by accepting the “patch” as he likes to call the plot. I changed my mind. I maintained a cool aloof silence which got Josh to send me a poke on Facebook. How does a poke get delivered? Maybe someone comes home, rings the bell and without exchanging even a hello, pokes you and goes off. I am really ticklish and hence I stayed home for a full day without answering the doorbell. And it worked. I was wildly successful in throwing the “poke delivery person” off track. They could not find me. I have since then been discovering one new surprise everyday. There is a quiz which lets you learn what you were in your previous life or scary ones that discover how low your IQ is. Today I checked my Facebook account. I think Josh is crazy. He sent me a party hat. He is mistaken if he thinks I will forgive him so easily for throwing a sheep at me and that too when I had done nothing to provoke him.

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Written first on April 11, 2009

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