People who can't read shouldn't write
Have you heard of freecycling? It's a gifting concept managed by mailing list, where people who have things they no longer want give them away instead of throwing them away or trying to sell them.
I have a whole bunch of stuff in my house that I want to get rid of, some of it that might be worth a few bucks if I were to sell it, but most of it would go for a dollar or two at a garage sale. I decided to post the whole shebang on freecycle and offer it to people who could come pick it up on Wednesday night; specifying the time of pick-up was to keep me from having to endlessly negotiate pick-up times with people.
I gave a few details about the items in my post (like that the computer doesn't work and isn't fixable, but has parts that are salvageable), to ask for items by lot number, and that I wanted people who could pick-up Wednesday evening. I got a lot of email back about the items, and oh so very many of them assumed the computer would work or offered to pick things up on Monday or right away or whenever I wanted. I said I wanted pick-ups Wednesday night between 8 and 11, that's what I wanted. I also got lots that said things like 'can I have the CD stuff' when I posted four separate lots of CD related items. Did they want some of them? All of them? That's why I wanted requests by Lot number.
Because finding my house is tricky, I *need* people who can follow instructions. It's not that hard to find, exactly, but I live in half of a semi-detached, and a lot of people don't seem to be able to tell the difference between 61 (my house) and 61A (the other half). Plus, I live in the basement, and use a different doorbell from my landlady, who will be in bed by the time these people start coming over and will be very aggravated if she gets woken up repeatedly by them. So I need to know that they'll read those instructions and follow them, as well.
In the end, that's basically what it came down to in making the choices between the 30 or so people who wanted some of the items. Which of them had sent me email messages that reflected that they had read my instructions?
Relevent links:
Freecycle
Freecycle Toronto