💧 Stay in Your Lane, Paperless Post

[We should all be managing our own digital calendars.]
When covering the automated rudeness of Resy, I said:

I’m a responsible adult who keeps a digital calendar. When I book a table for dinner, I also create an event, complete with reminders. Thanks to this system, I don’t believe I’ve ever missed a reservation in my life. That’s not boasting, it’s just how one should act in society.

This system continues to prevent me from being a flake, ensuring I remember and attend all manner of events. I need no further assistance, but boy do a lot of barely related services want to offer me some.

The latest was the online invitation company Paperless Post. Recently, I received a friendly birthday invitation sent with their system. I like cake, so I figured I’d go. I put the event in my calendar and then used the RSVP link to respond in the affirmative. That should have been the end of it, but it was not.

Instead, Paperless Post offered me this:

As you will no doubt guess, I clicked that de-emphasized “Skip” button. I do not need more automated texts in my life. Also, could we all just affirm once and for all that we know that message and data rates may apply? I shudder to think of the cumulative amount of time wasted reading the endless stream of notices of that obvious fact.

As I thought about this goofy feature more, it occurred to me that a text an hour before an event is surely rather late. How many people are reminded by such a text, and actually manage to show? Rather than alerting someone they should be attending an event soon, it’s almost certain to be the first indication that they’ll be missing it.

There are two other options offered, one of which is a day before reminder. That could be helpful, and it seems like it ought to be the default.

Either way, though, I’ll be passing. I don’t need to be receiving a text message like this: