Here in the 21st century, we like to believe that technology is infallible. Computers and circuits, electrical impulses and networks—if everything is in proper working order, won’t it all work perfectly? It’s reassuring to believe that people make mistakes while computers don’t. But every so often, it’s very important to remember—nothing is perfect.
Email Addresses and Domains
Most visitors access The Advertiser website via www.componentadvertiser.com, so they may not realize that typing www.componentadvertiser.org will bring them to the site too. While both .com and .org will have the same result when reaching our website, they will NOT have the same result when sending an email.
I will skip the background story and focus on the punchline—my email address is @componentadvertiser.org. In theory, an email sent to me at .com is supposed to reach me anyway, but I’ve come to realize that is just a theory. Some do . . . some don’t. I often wonder if there are “lost emails” out there, but, in situations like this, you can never know for sure. You can hope they find their way, you can assume they will arrive, but you can never be 100% certain.
Text Messages and Phone Calls
For those who are thinking, “.com vs .org is a problem that doesn’t affect me,” I have another example that may strike closer to home. At least once in our lives, we have ALL been told, or had to say, “No, I didn’t get the message.” While sometimes we’re tempted to think it’s just an excuse . . . sometimes it too is a real problem.
So my example is this. My sister and I have cell phones with nearly identical phone numbers (only the last 2 digits differ), they are both on my Verizon plan, and, because my name was on the receipt when we bought them, both numbers display with my name in other people’s caller ID. We’ll often text during the day, while the phones are a whooping 4 miles apart. More than 99% of the time, the texts arrive. But that other 1%—they simply disappear. There’s no rhyme or reason, no pattern to the disappearance. They are simply on the sender’s phone, never reaching the recipient.
The Benefit of the Doubt
Technology is a wonderful thing. It enables us to perform many tasks and, for the most part, we can rely on it. Which is why we’re all tempted to doubt the person who says, “No, I didn’t get your message.” But whether it’s an email, a voicemail, or a text message, there’s still no guarantee it will arrive as planned. So, the next time that you’re ready to blame human error, think twice. Give that person the benefit of the doubt, because technology is fallible too.