Invitations�

2006-03-22

Every job is an education. You learn something different everywhere you go. Sometimes it�s the oddest information.

I have become a specialist at invitations. The mayor and council get invitations by the hundreds. Invitations to grandpa�s 100th birthday, to junior�s graduation, and the ladies� afternoon tea. Not to mention actual government functions, meetings, conferences and seminars. I�ve come to know how to set up an invitation, and more importantly, how not to.

Many of the invitations that come are like puzzles. You have to search out the basic who, what, where when and why. A surprising number come entirely lacking that basic information entirely. We�ve actually had invitations come that lack any way to figure out anything. No phone, no address. Some of the people here are genuinely intelligent, they are not clairvoyant.

Many groups send out artistically designed invitations and are a pleasure to look at, but a nightmare to read. They print things sideways, upside down, and with photos for backgrounds. It makes it very difficult to try to interpret the information for people that really don�t have time to go through every piece of mail. Not to mention that I have to make a copy of every invitation that comes in case someone should lose their original, or just doesn�t have when they need it. Something that happens frequently.

Another thing that�s just a pet peeve of mine is �Save the date� cards. Generally they�re post cards that tell you to �hold� a particular date for an event. They don�t actually give you much information. Just the date and the name of the event. Save the trees, save the time, money and effort put into sending these things and just send the flippin� invitation. My boss makes me call all of these people and get the information that they don�t put on the card. Often they don�t have it because they haven�t decided yet. But my boss makes me call even though we know an invitation will be coming later. My own opinion, colored by the fact that they make extra work for both the sender and receiver, is skip it.

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