I love living in New Brunswick but I have a pet peeve to share today. No, it’s not NB’s roads or even NB’s property taxes (much more on that in the months to come). It’s about the fact that it seems to be culturally acceptable not to return phone calls, e-mail requests, or even requests made by snail mail.
In the five years that we have lived here, I can’t count the number of times that this has happened.
To wit. There was a time not long after we moved here that I offered my basketball coaching experience to a coach at Dr. Losier Middle School when I was working in Miramichi. She was very interested and we agreed to meet to discuss it. She didn’t show, but I heard that her mother had died right at that time, so I of course understood and expected to hear from her afterward. Never did.
Then, based on my experience with the University of Alberta Senate, I’d offered to volunteer in any way I could at Mount Allison and sent an e-mail to the President in that regard. No answer, so I thought it may have gone to his junk folder. So I followed up with a letter – never heard a word.
There have been many others, too: a poet who said she’d get back to me to discuss some type of mentorship but never did; a contact at the Telegraph-Journal regarding submitting articles who had interacted with me before but then simply ghosted me; a couple of different contacts at the CBC who have refused to answer e-mails simply asking for the name of a contact person for submitting freelance work.
There are others, too, believe me.
If the roles were reversed, I would never do this to someone who’d tried to contact me in good faith. It’s rude and unprofessional and I would simply have expected better from the people involved. I’d like to think that it’s not part of how things are done in New Brunswick, but the number of times this has happened certainly does make a person wonder.