On occasion I work Reception. In fact I’m actually “working” right now so don’t tell anyone.

Part of my role is to sort incoming mail and then delivery it to the correct pigeon holes. Whilst sorting through the legitimate mail I find myself with handfuls and handfuls of tangible spam. Just now, I’ve thrown out 16 letters from the same organisation to different people who work here. And much much more.

I don’t even open the envelopes before turfing them into the recycling bin. I feel like writing to them to say that interruption advertising like this just doesn’t work. Especially when you can’t even get it through the Receptionist.

I did find one exception a few weeks ago. A small tin arrived which was clearly spam addressed to one of the managers. But I didn’t throw it away.

The instructions said to open it and water it daily while keeping it warm. So I took it home that night and thus began a two week relationship with the brand and counting. After a few days a plant sprouted and somehow on one of the leaves were embed the words Thank You. It’s still growing today. It’s somewhat similar to this.

What a great way to break through the clutter. I’m still interacting with the brand and I even feel like they are a little bit more environmentally friendly than I thought.

I guess the only problem is I took it home and failed to pass it onto the manager. Like the rest of the junk mail, it never got passed the Receptionist even if for a different reason.