Joan Ball is a business professor at St. John’s University in New York and the author of Flirting with Faith: My Spiritual Journey from Atheism to a Faith-Filled Life.
I have a friend I affectionately refer to as “the
Thank-You Note Nazi.”
No sooner does she return from a dinner party than she
dispatches an elegant and exquisitely chosen card expressing the most effusive
(and quite sincere, as far as I can tell) sentiments of gratitude for being
included in the event, even if it was just a weenie roast or popcorn and a video enjoyed in our sloppy sweats. (I’ve even wondered if she tips her postal carrier extra
to expedite her mail, because I swear her little courtesy bombs arrive
practically before the last dish is washed.)
Heck, sometimes she’ll even add an
informal text message on her way home
from the party to say thanks on top of thanks. It’s really heart-warming.
Annnnd, it also makes me feel just a teeeeny bit inadequate.
Much as I treasure them, every now and then, I gotta admit, I have developed a
raging (if hastily sublimated) resentment at the sight of one of these ravishingly calligraphed missives.
I’m a late-comer to the custom of sending thank-you notes, not having grown up much indoctrinated with the tradition, but I’m becoming a big adherent. I really like the idea of doing something formal and tangible to express my feelings to a person to whom I owe gratitude. It’s a nice way of telling the person I respect them and honor what they’ve done for me.
And, quite frankly, I also really, really don’t want people to think I’m a schmuck.
When I got married two years ago, my gratitude anxiety was so great that I made a list of all our wedding gifts and givers on our wedding night and my husband and I wrote out all our cards in the airport (I brought stamps and everything) on the way to the honeymoon the following day. I legitimately wanted people to know how much I valued the thoughtfulness and expense of their gifts, but I also didn’t want to be seen falling down on the job.
So, where does my code of ethics figure in?
Perhaps in the tension between my honest desire to express gratitude and my growing resentment over observing endless formalities. Must I send a thank-you for the beautiful thank-you card my baroquely mannered friend sent? Or, at the least, if my friend is the type who writes and mails letters for the least little affair, must I do as much when it’s my turn? (I have another friend who insists on buying all her chums cards and trinkets for every occasion (even St. Patty’s day) and I don’t want to reciprocate, frankly, because that’s just not my style. Call me a selfish blankity-blank, but I express my affection in other ways and at other times of my own choosing.
So, what’s my responsibility here? I mean, when it’s something like a job interview or a gift from grandma, I know darn well it behooves me to haul out the ol’ pen and ink (and I generally enjoy doing it then, because it feels sincere). But to keep up with the Miss Mannerses, must I continue this Thank-You escalation to the point of absurdity, or would that actually be phony and insincere, and thus unethical?
I bet my friend would say she doesn’t want me to bullsh*t her with some Hallmark treacle, that she does what she does because it feels right for her, and that I should chill out, do what feels natural for me, and just keep in mind that people love a little appreciation now and then. I just hope my friends and acquaintances don’t think poorly of my upbringing (or my regard for them if I express it in my own way.)
Incidentally, Paddy has a truly amazing thank-you note story, which I hope she’ll share here…
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posted August 4, 2009 at 10:54 am
I love the moniker you’ve given your friend. Hysterical. I’m a lot like her, although I have a friend who is even worse–not just a Nazi but the Hitler of thank-you notes!!! My best guess is that your friend does it because it makes her happy. I know I write thank-you notes mostly because I like to, not because I have to. I mean, most of my peers don’t do it, so it’s not as if I feel a lot of pressure. For me, too, it’s also out of habit. I *was* brought up to write them, so it’s just natural. I certainly don’t think Emily Post would say that one should write a thank-you note *for* a thank-you note. That really would be taking things too far. LOL. I also think, if your friend really knows you then she knows you don’t love sending them and probably doesn’t care all that much (although we do often do things for others that we ourselves appreciate and like). I personally don’t understand a “resentment against observing endless formalities” because I don’t think society would have come very far if we hadn’t observed them, and while I am all for personal expression, I don’t think the two have to be mutually exclusive. (Perhaps a thank-you note in the form of a sketch of the meal, or a youtube video of you using the gift, or a polaroid of you smiling–I think you can observe an old tradition and still make it your own.) I don’t think it’s unethical, certainly, not to send a thank-you note and an insincere one is probably pointless and may actually be unethical in some sense… I don’t know… It may be that you, as a rule, don’t write thank-you notes to people unless you know it’s really meaningful to a particular person. Generally I, and I’m guessing your friend, write them because it’s meaningful to us when we receive them and we genuinely feel gratitude. Your post made me laugh a lot. You have the friend who is perhaps overly adherent to rules of old-fashioned etiquette (much like me), and I have the friend who would like to redefine etiquette (perhaps like you). Unfortunately, I don’t think I will ever see a reason not to keep up at least with the small gestures–like thank-you notes–but perhaps I will rethink to whom I should send them. LOL. I guess my fear in letting go of the small things, the things that require no effort really, is that bigger things will soon be let go of, too. And then what? Will people start licking their knives at the table? Yuck! Putting their feet on the unoccupied seat in front of them at a restaurant? I really do believe that these formalities, these rules if you will, have been kept in place to make us able to live together more comfortably. The thank-you note, it’s just a bit outdated in an age of email but it still represents something great. I gotta say, this is one of my FAVORITE posts so far!