I thought I replied to this thread already (it must have been one of those replies I got bored with and deleted before I sent it!).
In response to Simon: I do think it unprofessional not to include a compliments slip. It's just...unprofessional, no two ways about it. It surely takes all of two seconds to place a pre-prepared compliments slip into the envelope you are sending off, anyway - that's why you have them made up generically - to save time on sending out letters. The only thing *not* sending a compliments slip equates to in my book is the suggestion that the agency aren't professional enough/are too skinflint to print up compliment slips...and that may well be true, and reflect very badly on them *as an agency*. I suppose it might get missed, on occasion, or lost in the bottom of the envelope. But honestly...
With that said, I don't necessarily expect anything *more* than a compliments slip back: it may be impolite not to send an appreciative letter, but we live in an age that *is* hugely impolite, in every walk of life, and judging what an agency office should be doing by the standards of forty years ago doesn't cut a lot of ice - *their* argument would surely be: they could afford to reply to everyone individually forty years ago because there were a lot less actors, then. And, you know, they might have a point.
The thing that does make me smile, and irk me, in about equal measure is the notion that you include an SAE generally when you would like your headshot back in order that you can reuse it, and that, theoretically, at least, is why they get sent back to you if the office doesn't wish to place the shot on file. Of course, vast numbers of your photos are sent back in unusable forms: creased, smudged, or frequently bearing the tear where they've had to rip out the staple that you used to attach it to the CV. You might as well have just left out the SAE and told them to chuck the photo if they weren't interested. But then, the real reason they tend to send headshots back is so they don't clutter up the office.
I don't ever expect a vast amount of courtesy from those whose first rule of thumb is: if you want the picture back, then make sure *you* include the postage. Can you blame the office? If they paid postage on returning every single failed application they received every day, it'd probably cost them several hundred a year.
But this percolates down: because actors aren't at a premium, there is far less need to treat them with special courtesy. Forbes is right when he says you just have to accept that, and plough on, regardless, making yourself stand out in such a way that agencies and casting offices learn to treat you as one of the actors who they *do* make time for.
Still and all, not even bothering with a compliments slip is pretty poor, in my book!
