Sometimes I torment for sport.

Back when I was in college, I joined a service sorority for one semester. I was pressured into it because they needed some new leadership, I hated it, I was involved in plenty of other things, I quit after one semester.

As such, I have no affinity to it. But, every year I get a newsletter from them.

The first couple of years, I just threw it out. Then one year I decided I didn't want to get it anymore, so I found a name on the newsletter and I e-mailed a request to be taken off of the list.

Since I work in direct mail, I like to do stuff like this to see how these requests are handled. I was also a sociology major for a semester, so I tend to like to experiment and observe. And sometimes torment people to see what will happen....

As of today, I've made the request to be removed from the mailing list every year for the past several years. Last week, I got another newsletter.

Clearly, I have not been removed.

I've even moved several times during this time period, and every year I get a newsletter at whatever my current address is. So clearly they can UPDATE my address, but they can't REMOVE it.

Some years, I get a response back to my request to be removed. One year in particular, a girl argued with me, saying they have no control over the list since it comes from their national office and there was nothing they could do about it.

I asked if she could forward my request to the national office. She repeated that no, there is nothing they can do about it. This essentially tells me that I'm going to get mail from them for the rest of my life.

To this I replied, "Ok, next year when you are sticking the labels on your local chapter's newsletter, when you see my label, peel it off and throw it away."

I know full well that you have to honor requests to be removed from a mailing list. These silly excuses don't fly with me.

It's not that I hate the newsletter. It's all part of the game, you see.

This year I got a response back that says they do not control the list and that I had to contact someone in the Alumni office. So I forwarded the whole thing to this person in the Alumni office. We'll see what happens.

I figure that several years ago after my first request, they added me to a "Mail Every Year No Matter What" list and that it has now become an annual tradition to send mail to me, then have some sort of social event around my annual request to be removed from the list. I assume that I have become legend, and that my photo is up somewhere and every year they tell the tale to the new pledges. I'm sure it's part of the rush activities for each pledge to come up with some new excuse to tell me when I make my annual request.

It's all part of the game.

C.T.