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Rules of Engagement
February 1st, 2006
Got a spam message today from some blog advertising site. It had an e-mail disclaimer. Someone spammed with the a legal obligation. Sick.
It has been on my todo list for some time to draft my own disclaimer disclaimer. I’m just going to use John’s.
Note that any e-mail address connected to a domain name registered by Alan Gutierrez or The Engine Room, LLC is considered one of my addresses. Any e-mail address that starts with alan or alan- will go directly to me.
Here are my rules of engagment.
From a USENET article by John Sullivan
Disclaimer:
By sending an email to ANY of my addresses you are agreeing that:
- I am by definition, “the intended recipient”
- All information in the email is mine to do with as I see fit and make such financial profit, political mileage, or good joke as it lends itself to. In particular, I may quote it on usenet.
- I may take the contents as representing the views of your company.
- This overrides any disclaimer or statement of confidentiality that may be included on your message.
I don’t keep secrets for people who are not friends. Not unless you pay me.
What are your rules of engagement? When some stranger, or casual web acquantence wants to get closer, what sort of dance to you do?
comments
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Comments 
You’re really putting yourself out there, you know, with a Google map to your address, phone number and not spoofing your email address(es).
My first criterion for the web acquaintance axe: “cn i b ur frnd? lol
” If you can’t write me in whole sentences and lack a specific reason for wanting to get to know me or get involved in one of interests/projects, begone.
Replies go to the following: Interesting insight, references and pointers to books/music/articles/other sites, etc., how can I get busy with such and such a project, how do you go about achieving this in blogging, geology, workforce, language, are you interested in joining a group on X or Y, can I offer you some advice in X or Y topic …
Which reminds me to make my Google address perminent in the sidebar. I’d also like to annunce when I’m at enVie, Coop’s, 1515 Poydras, and such. It would be nice to have a way to get that out to people’s cell phones, directions to me.
About friendship…
Maitri
Friendship is a strange thing. I’m not sure how you go about it. This is difficult because I am excellent at breaking the ice. I get to know a lot of people quickly, but never very well.
I’m a month into New Orleans, and I’m feeling like I’m surrounded by new people, and not very many old people. I’m starting to feel like more of a persona than a person.
What are the mechanics of friendship? I’m two burned out right now to answer, but I’m musing on this. What can I return to that makes me a decent fellow, someone worth knowing?
Frienship, to me, is that which comes naturally and doesn’t seem faked. On deeper introspection and experience, sometimes people do seemingly friendly things which don’t end up being acts of friendship at all. I think it’s more in deeds and actions than in words, but sometimes even actions are not well thought out. In that respect, I know a lot of people, but have very few friends, and take the time and pain to understand their limitations.
You talk a lot of making a lot of friends and being surrounded by warmth and welcome, but are also burned out a lot. Why don’t you take some time to get to know yourself, not in relation to others, in New Orleans?
Incidentally, Maitri means friendship.
Maitri
I’m infrequently burned. What gave you that impression? I can’t recall the last time I was burned by a friend. I’ve made horrible mistakes, in the past, and especially in New Orleans, but not with friends in New Orleans. At least, I don’t feel that any of my friends in New Orleans did me any harm.
Getting to know myself. What does that mean exactly?
From time to time, just get away from being with and thinking about connecting with the humans of New Orleans. Just be by yourself in New Orleans, instead of at the center of everything.
Don’t mind me and my experiences; I love people and am never less than honest with everyone I meet, but am quite finnicky about who I let deep inside. Maybe the word “friendship” is something that carries more density and emotion in my vernacular than it does in yours. Looks like I have to find a word that goes between acquaintance and friend.
Read, Gutierrez, read. I said you talk about being burned out, not burned. [Don't worry - I don't read through all the time, either. *smile*]
Maitri
I might get burned out, and burned, more by the rough and tumble of moving into a city that is under repair. I’m enjoying a pleasant day in my scantly furnished apartment today. I’ve got a table that acts as a desk, an office chair, a futon, and a space heater. Everything else is icing. I do hope to find that I’m less stressed, and a tad more self-sufficent.
The world friendship is one that I cast about, once again. One that I held in reserve for some time. Why? Not sure. Active friendship has it’s rewards. It seems to be a project.
I’m going to remain intregued with people in New Orleans, since I spent so much time in such isolation in Ann Arbor. I’ll try to add this notion of just being. It ought be easier with my own, convenently located, space.
Thanks for listening, as always.
New Orleans, of all places, ought to me most conducive to “just being.” I try to do it in Ann Arbor. Perhaps once the winter passes and one can get out and about again I will find more opportunity. Isolation can help with introspection.
P.S. I always thought those disclaimers appended to corporate emails were ridiculous. As if I’m under any obligation whatsoever if someone in their company mistakenly sends me something. Not my problem, sorry.
Dave and Maitri
I’m in the process of just being tonight. Your advice is sound.
I’m reminded of a Heather Havrilesky’s Filler article Bestride Ye Collossus, in which she described a man that was irresistable…
How nice is this passive notion of masculine magnitism, on a night such as this. I am so close to being able to spend an evening with a book, a programming project, making my home, or talking a long walk. Or even here, mincing words with sharp minds.
That is the suggestion when I am flip and aloof. That is the source of the burn out. The slowly staged retreat.
How disappointing when they detect the desire. Into open arms I tend to collpase.
At the same time I’m marveling at how insecure I’ve become about my lack of education in this past year.
Within Ann Arbor, I put myself in a strange environment. One that did so much to erode my confidence in my abilities. That positioning came oddly at a time when those that cared about me most were doing all they could, and more, to support me.
I’m recognizing, quite simply, that I have a habit of spending the support of people who care about me, in the pursuit of people who don’t.
With so many new people in my life, I’m watching myself carefully, to make sure I do not repeat this pattern again. There is a need for new relationships, as I am living in a new city. This is why I keep harping on friendship.
This is an evening where I consider the people that came and went and took a chunk, and ask, why did I let that happen?
As the Replacements sang:
The ones who love us best
Are the ones we’ll lay to rest
And visit their graves on holidays at best
The ones who love us least
Are the ones we’ll die to please
If it’s any consolation, I don’t begin to understand.
Gee, I’ll have to read that article. It might give me a clue as to why I continue to be so thoroughly invisible to the opposite sex.
[...] We get a lot of email from lawyers, to our mailing lists, with stupid email disclaimers. They think they are sharing information? These disclaimers do not apply to me, of course, because I have my own disclaimer. [...]