Data Entry Eulogy

When not getting into wacky burrito-related adventures, I work for a magazine where the average age of the readership is somewhere around 64. That's the average age, but most of the people who call on the phone seem a lot older than that. I am constantly being told to speak up.

Another hazard is that almost every day, I get a letter or a phone call telling me that one of our subscribers has died. When I first started working here and somebody called to tell me that one of our readers was dead, I would always express my condolences. And I would feel very sad for a moment. I don't really do that anymore.

What I do instead is give the person a data entry eulogy.

The program we use to track subscribers is much more complicated than necessary. It was clearly created for a sales team that wants to keep track of all of its clients. So there are lots of unnecessary fields that I don't normally touch. Now, when someone dies, my only responsibility as an Editorial Assistant is to open this program, open their file and check a little box that says "Deceased." It's a bit impersonal, so I've started playing around with the files, imagining lives for our deceased readership. Like inventing their Personal Interests (though strangely enough, the only options in the pull-down menu are "Golf," "Sailing," and "Tennis.") , their Alternate Nickname (nearly always "Hoss"), and the Other Country in which their Primary Residence is located (which I often fill in with a metaphysical state. Metaphysical "state," get it?).

Anyway, when this is all done, I feel like I actually know the person a little better. Or, at least, I can pretend like I do. And then, finally, I check the "Deceased" box and whisper "Bye, Hoss."