Rav Casley Gera

Thanks to The Softback Preview for neatly summarising, before November is even over, everything that makes Christmas these days so utterly, utterly depressing.

“Dear member,” reads the card that plopped through the door this week. “Season’s greetings from everyone at TSP.”

It’s signed “Alice Ryan.” Obviously, I have no idea who Alice Ryan is. Nevertheless, I could live with the card. It has some harmless, albeit soulless, red and gold wrapped presents on the front. “Alice’s” signature is printed in a deep blue colour that almost looks like real pen. And, isn’t everyone used to corporate cards by now? I’ll never forget by genuine dismay when the only card in the post on my 17th birthday was from my temping agency. It showed a couple of jacket-n-cuffed wrists, one male, one female, clinking together glasses filled with sickly, yellow, fluid that looked like fizzy pee. Nine years on, I understand that insincere corporate wishes on special occasions are just part of the spectrum of modern life. And hey, at least I didn’t get 18th birthday cards with credit cards inside, which have been known in the US.

No, what really stunned me was the inscription on the inside-left of the card. “You’ve been one of our most valued members this year,” it trills. “So we’ve enclosed a special Christmas gift for you to say a special ‘thank you!’”

Hmm. One of their most valued customers, eh? Wow. I must have bought a lot of TSP books. How many? Let me think… um… oh, yes, that’s right. None. Actually, come to think of it, I’ve never bought a book from them. I got four free books when I joined (Simon Schama’s three-volume History of Britain - I was having a period of patriotic guilt - and Robert Dallek’s famous bio of JFK). Since then, I’ve dutifully called every month to reject the editor’s choice. A couple of times, I missed the deadline, and actually received the editor’s choice, only to dutifully send it back and swallow the cost of postage & packing.

A few months ago, bored of the monthly routine, I swallowed my guilt over not actually buying anything to justify my £60-worth of freebies and called to cancel my membership. For a few months, the TSP left my life. Then I got a call in around June, telling me that they’d love me to rejoin, and they could send me a free book of my choice if I did. So I did. The free book took three months, and free phone calls, to arrive; when it did, I knew I wouldn’t read it - after all, I hadn’t touched the Sharmas or the Dallek. So I gave it to my editor. And a month later, after nearly forgetting to reject the editor’s choice, I cancelled again.

So, to recap, they’ve sent me about £70’s worth of free books; I’ve never paid them for anything other than postage; I’ve cancelled my membership twice; and I’m not actually currently a member.

Apparently, I’m nevertheless one of their most valued customers!

So I was nonplussed to be offered “a Christmas gift to say a special ‘thank you’!” What could it be? A £5 voucher? £10 even? Maybe, if they were being pushy in driving up Christmas sales, 3 for 2?

Nope. Free postage and packing.

Free postage and packing! JEsus! Even with such a broad definition of “valued customer,” that seems really naff. “Buy an item at FULL PRICE, and we’ll send it to you free - because you’re our valued customer!” Isn’t that like your boss telling you, “because you’re one of our most valued team members, as a special Christmas bonus, you can do slightly less unpaid overtime than usual this month?”

Don’t get me wrong - I’m obviously not in a position to complain, given that P&P is so far the only thing I’ve ever actually paid them. But that’s just it. The Christmas blarney that this voucher comes wrapped in is so out of sync, not just with my actual status as a customer, but with its contents. To offer free P&P on Christmas purchases (oh yes, the voucher expires on New Year’s Eve) is an entirely reasonable, admirable thing for a retailer to do to drum up seasonal business - and of all the daft things people buy too many of at Christmas, surely books have to be amongst the least unnecessary. But why does it have to come in a card, with a silly, gushing message? Why the ego massage? Surely, even in our isolated, screen-hunched digital days, nobody is so in dire need of emotional support that they might be heartened to learn of their “valued customer” status? Surely this crap doesn’t sell more books?

Advertising and commerce penetrate further than ever into our lives, through billboards, TV screens, sports sponsorship, and so on. I went to a restaurant recently and they were advertising Sideways DVDs on the Guinness glasses, for Christ’s sake. But at least that’s impersonal - aimed at a vaguely defined “audience.” It’s not pretending to be your friend. What makes this so nauseating is its cack-handed attempt to mean something.

In olden times, to chat to the guy who ran the grocery store - to maybe deliver him a Christmas card, to attend his funeral and be genuinely shaken - made perfect sense. Now, with your local Tesco’s staffed by an ever-changing roster of students and near-retirees, it’s still just possible to maintain a relationship with some staff - you’ll occasionally see a checkout person greeting a regular with a cheery hello. But a relationship with the institution itself? No chance. We used to associate a company with its people. Now we associate it with a logo, a slogan, a lifestyle. And when a faceless corporation tries to establish an interpersonal relationship - whether through a cheery email or an actual card - it just numbs and sickens.

So, sorry, Alice Payn - if you even exist - but my first Christmas card of 2006 is going in the recycling. In fact, I’m seriously considering buying some horrendous corporate cards of my own and sending them to all the corporations on which my life now depends.

Dear Amazon / Evans’ Cycles / J.D. Wetherspoon’s / Yahoo

You’ve been one of my most valued suppliers this year. Now as the nights draw in, we turn our thoughts to the festive season. So Best Wishes, from all of us - well, me - to you, your thousands of employees, further hundreds of affiliated contractors and agency temps, and all their families.

Here’s looking forward to another productive year together.

Season’s Greetings,

Rav Casley Gera