The Melancholy of Fart_Lord420@aol.com

When I was working as an independent media production contractor, I would network with potential clients and correspond with employers almost exclusively via e-mail. That's the nature of the business -- the movers and shakers' phone lines are perpetually tied up (or at least that's what they'd like you to think). In most cases, they had sensible email addresses along the lines of those described by Seymour in his last post.

Fart_Lord420@aol.com was not one of those cases.

I was introduced to the distinguished Mr. Fart Lord through an old client who would occasionally feed me leads. Apparently, he was an up-and-coming musician (what instruments he played remain a mystery to this day -- though beans, the musical fruit, seem a reasonable guess) looking for somebody to edit videos of his live performances. I reluctantly solicited this, shall we say...unfortunately-named individual, and was met with an unprofessional and uncouth response befitting a man who would deliberately present himself as a "fart lord." While he did express interest in my services, I declined him as a client for the following reasons:

1.) His email account name indicated that he loved farting and was probably perpetually baked.

2.) Assuming the hypotheses proposed in item #1 are true, he was probably on drugs when he composed that e-mail. And farting.

3.) Assuming the hypotheses proposed in items #1 and #2 are true, he wasn't worth dealing with in any capacity, professional or otherwise.

4.) His business e-mail address was "Fart_Lord420." Fart. Lord. Four. Twenty.

My position on e-mail usernames is that of almost everybody else in the professional world -- an immature, crude, incoherent, or otherwise inappropriate name is a likely indicator of an overall lack of decorum on the sender's end.

My tipster now screens email addresses before sending me leads.

Play it safe when it comes to choosing the name that will follow you through your professional career. A Fart_Lord by any other name, in this instance, will smell much sweeter.

Labels: email addresses, professional decorum