As students, much like the adults we’ll become, we get targeted with mail that we often don’t want. Obviously we could put a sign in the window saying that we don’t want any of that stuff, but that has always struck me as such a hermit-like thing to do.

Plus, junk mail can be interesting sometimes. Let’s take a look:

Burger King Coupons
Yesterday I went to Burger King. I had absolutely no intention of going to Burger King any time soon, before a couple days ago, but then a fat wad of Burger King coupons was dropped through my letter box. Here’s a startling truth: Students love special offers. Even if there are students that don’t particularly care about being frugal, they should do.

Burger King must know this, because I’m sure they’re not dropping these coupons through the postboxes of non-student houses. When I see those big yellow letters, telling me that I can get £30 off at BK? I go wild. Burger King coupons fuck my shit up.

And therein lies their brilliant business model: Drop coupons through the postbox, and you get a whole gaggle of hungry students piling through the door. Even if those students never had any intention of visiting the fine establishment, they swarm through the door because it feels like they’re saving money. Never mind the fact that if they didn’t go and stock up on burgers, they would have saved more money. They get to eat junk food, and they get to save money on it. So they’re happy, and Burger King is happy. Everybody wins.

Post Office Look-a-like
This one probably requires a photo, which I just happen to have handy:

This one is particularly sneaky. I was waiting for a fucking package at the time, so the fact that British Telecom dropped a broadband advert through my post box that looked like a “You have a package waiting for you” slip threw me. Excitement soon led to mild annoyance that they’re even allowed to do this.

It’s definitely a clever way of making someone look twice, though. Which is all they want the potential customers to do. But surely if those customers are also waiting for a package, and get given false hope by this piece of mail, they’ll stay away from BT simply out of spite?

Take-away Menus
So, I can understand the Burger King coupons, because I love me some fucking hamburgers. And I can understand the BT advert, because it’s sneaky but it’s a good method of stopping people from throwing it away without regard.

But take-away menus? This shit gets dropped through our slot all the goddamn time. It’s not like I don’t enjoy take-away, because I do. And I’d have no trouble with it if we only got one from each take-away. But I’m pretty sure we’ve been given over a million menus from City Pizza, and I don’t have a clue why. If we want to order from City Pizza, then we keep the menu. If we don’t want to order from City Pizza, then we throw the menu away. It’s that simple.

Even if we happened to regret our terrible mistake, and desperately want to order from them (It’s not like there are any other pizza places in Cardiff, after all?) again, giving us a menu more than twice is just wrong. So here’s a new idea: Do a mail-shot once a year, just in case the tenants are new, and save some fucking paper.