An Alphabet Of Things I Don’t Like: U

~ beetleypete

Urgent.

This sort of thing. You know what I mean, I’m sure.

It is usually on the front of an envelope containing unsolicited mail. The envelope normally contains either an appeal for a donation, or a message that you should buy something before the bargains end soon.

When I was young, ‘Urgent’ meant something. It meant whatever it was really was urgent, and required immediate attention. Like they were going to cut off your electricity, or you had a job interview the next day. It didn’t mean an appeal for water aid to a foreign country that had been going on since I was ten years old, or the chance to buy a sofa that would almost certainly be cheaper next month anyway.

Like so many words in this modern world, it has lost all the impact of its true meaning, to the extent that this type of mail often goes straight into the bin without even being opened.

So, all you companies and charities that do this, I don’t like it. Please stop.

45 thoughts on “An Alphabet Of Things I Don’t Like: U”

  2. Here they have to keep explaining the difference between urgent and emergency. Now that there are “urgent care” clinics everywhere, they have to tell people that heart attacks are emergencies. Other minor injuries are not.

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      1. Then again our emergency rooms have billboards advertising their wait times. Who is going to look at a billboard when they are having an emergency?”I guess I will wait for a shorter wait time before I tend to my heart attack.”

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      1. Yep, too many are on the ‘Urgent’ list as per usual. I used to get shouted at as though it was my fault that they had to wait! What used to make me angry was when a particular consultant from another department visited our pain consultant to tell him that that his wife needed to be seen urgently. Grr… he got his way.

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        1. Mt wife works as a GP receptionist, and almost everyone who rings the surgery tells her they need to be seen ‘urgently’. As for doctors bending the rules, I suppose that’s part of the peks of the job. When I was an EMT, we usually got seen quickly in A&E. They reasoned that it made sense, as we could get back out and do our job if no treatment was necessary.

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