Dear
It is my pleasure to inform you that you are being considered for inclusion in the upcoming 2009 Edition of Who's Who in America®, which is scheduled for publication in October 2008.
Since 1899, when A.N. Marquis published the First Edition of Who's Who in
To be considered for inclusion in this prestigious publication, you need only provide the requested information by completing our secure and easy-to-use online BLA BLA BORING BLA
The information you provide will be evaluated according to the selection standards Marquis Who's Who has developed over 100 years as the world's premier biographical publisher. If your data passes our initial screening, we will prepare your biography in Marquis Who's Who format and send you a pre-publication proof for your verification and approval.
I congratulate you on the achievements that have brought your name to the attention of our editorial committee. We look forward to hearing from you.
Sincerely,
Yadda Yadda.
(I did edit it a little bit, I bet you couldn't tell). When you get it, you get this little hiccup inside. It's like "They like me, they really like me!" Until you realize that they don't even know who you are.
In my case, it's like this. I'm not a somebody, and I'm not a Who's who. I'm a Who's That. As in "who's that over there at our exclusive party and how did he get in here and how do we get him out." Or something. So you get this email and you figure, how much are they going to charge you. And it says they don't (in a post script I didn't bother to paste here). So then you figure, do I have some old high school buddy working for WW that would put my name in as a joke? And then you realize, you only have one old high school buddy, and she writes a brilliant blog and works in a different industry and would tell you if she was working for WW (right, Katy, right???).
So what I figure they do is go through and pick out everyone, say, who has a PhD, or everyone who has published anything just about anywhere. And if they do that, they'd come up with me, just barely. I mean if someone from WW read something I published that pushes the numbers of people who have read my work up to, oh, about one reader. I am definitely among those who is "published" but not at all "read." Even a little. So I should probably be thankful some poor bastard at WW is paid to see if I've published anything. But that doesn't make me a Who's Who. Still pretty much a Who's That.
Not that there's anything wrong with being a Who's That, mind you. Most of us are, right? Let's hear a big rousing cheer from all the Who's Thats out there reading this (thank you both, loyal readers). The tricky thing is sometimes you get this feeling like you're a Who's Who, and that's a dangerous feeling. You start to feel like you're joining the elite club of people who have Made It. Don't ask me where they've Made It to. I really don't know, cause I haven't Made It there. I mean I've made it, if you know what I mean (nudge nudge, wink wink, say no more) but not in the capitalized sense. It feels a little bit like being invited to sit at the cool kids table in mid school. I imagine. And when you think of it that way, there's really only one thing for someone like me to do with an email like this.
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Delete.
5 comments:
I just got an email like that as well. My first thought was "This must be a HUGE book, if they want to put me in..." Then I got carried away thinking of all my major achievements that has made me interesting - which took about 10 seconds, before I realized that they can be listed in VERY few words...
There's nothing wrong with being a "Who's That", but most of us have a tiny wish to be a VIP some of the time - and this email plays wonderfully on that tiny wish...
I completely agree - we all have this desire, or maybe even a belief, that deep down we are Something Special, more special than our fellow humans perhaps, a Who's Who. And the email grabs that part of you and doesn't want to let go. I even considered signing up for it for about a second, before reality set in. But as you said, nothing at all wrong with all of us "Who's Thats" out there. We rock. It's just nobody knows it :o)
And I thought I was THE ONE ! Har! Har !
It (the email) did give me a solitary moment of "high" feeling - the note sounding all authentic and stuff and directed to my company address to top it all. I started counting my publications in all the journals and conferences - well, I wanted to reach double-digits somehow - I did, I counted 15 and then tacked on the 4 recent "patent pendings" !!! vola ! I was there - WW in A. Momentary high, yes ! There must be close to at least 10,000 other lunatics like me who got their PhDs from reputed universities and published double-digit number of papers and patents - jeeezz that must be a FAT WW book. Hey, it's not Apr 1 yet ! WTF, I'll goto the linky in the email finally. Momentary high, yeah...I'll take it. But again, WTF, I am no WWA - my parents think I am WWW (world), but everybodys thinks that of their kid, right ? But it's a funny, egoistically great sounding email nevertheless. Momentary high, yeah !
ha. i was just searching web, if anyone got the same email and found this blog... no clue why me, so i sent them email asking why me and even though i got answer, it was not really specific answer, just a process they have... the funny thing is that they call me Dr. ...., but i am not even Dr. yet :), just few publications and one pending patent application :) (and not speaking about crappy university i finished - crappy = not accepted by most of the US people), and I don't really feel like someone who should be in that book. i also thought this MUST be spam, but the scary thing is that it isn't :)
Man, how many Who's Who's can be out there! I mean really, now I KNOW that it's not as big a deal as I thought. I'm gonna start my very own "Who's that" website and a book "who's that in America." Funny thing is, my enlisted rolls will be smaller than Who's Who's lists!
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