Good-Bye, Mail Harassment

Speaking of harassment, a few months after my uneventful escape (graduation) from the evil empire (NYU), the solicitation letters began arriving. Dear NYU Alum, they always began, but I don’t know what else they said because I would tear them up in a frenzy, wondering where these people got the balls to ask me for money when I made less than $30,000 and was up to my eyeballs in debt. (Remember, I’m short, so being up to my eyeballs in debt is actually not as bad as other college grads have it, although I complain about it just as loudly and frequently.)

The requests for money came at least once a month, and they were starting to really annoy me. One evening, after a particularly unpleasant day of attempting to do good at work, I reached my limit. I took the donation slip, filled it out, placed it in the postage paid return envelope. After dropping it in the mailbox, I felt much better.

Every once in a while I smirk to myself when I think about the look on the alumni relations staff member’s face when he/she read my donation form. I wrote, “It will be a cold day in hell before you wrest even a penny out of me, and I hear that it is getting hotter there every day. STOP ASKING ME FOR MONEY!”

It worked. I never received a request again. Now to try this with the annoying graduate program I attended.