Archive for category life
Feedback THIS!
I just had an odd and possibly quite revealing experience after speaking with a customer support representative. While the rep was suitably polite, friendly and eager to help, they were at a loss as to how to resolve the issue I was having.
As it turns out, it wasn’t anything too complex, but the matter was something either beyond the rep’s realms of expertise, or simply unknown to the company’s knowledge base.
I ended up fixing the problem myself as I was talking to the rep, who was frantically shuffling through reference material. They even asked me a couple of times for pointers that really, I had just as good odds of knowing as they did.
As soon as the rep signed off, having made sure my problem was resolved and wishing me a good day, I was given the option of filling out a customer feedback form to rate my satisfaction with the product, and the service I received.
Almost without thinking, I started to tick off the ratings from one to ten, and finally I came to the part where I could add a comment to sum up how I felt about how I’d been treated. I was halfway through the paragraph, in which I basically summed up what I’ve said so far in this post, when I stopped and had a thought, and hit the Cancel button.
Fuck it.
Ultimately, I reasoned that the person who’d spent twenty plus minutes trying to help me with my problem was doing just that. Admittedly, they hadn’t known about the issue and I ended up fixing it myself, but they had been cordial and tried their best under the circumstances.
The person on the other end of the ethernet cable was, in all statistical likelihood, a young guy. Possibly even with family. And this was his job. Regardless of how well he understood my particular problem, he had made me feel like a valued customer in a way that would no doubt make his corporate overlords proud.
I’ve had dealings with dickish line managers in my time, who exude a false buddy-buddy charm while simultaneously looking for any hint that you aren’t hitting your quota. My feedback wasn’t harsh by any stretch of the imagination, but I had a feeling that it’s the kind of thing managers look for. Gaps in knowledge. Below threshold. That kind of bullshit.
While I considered giving the guy exaggeratedly positive feedback just to fuck with the line manager my jaded imagination had conjured up, I ultimately reasoned that no feedback at all was a reasonable – if expected – alternative to the whinging, rubbishy advocation of “must try harder” that my original response would no doubt have been taken as.
So in summary, I guess this has made me think a little bit harder about the full effect our throwaway actions and words can have. Either that, or I’m a massive pussy. YOU decide.
Good Blog-keeping
For those of you who have missed my numerous subtle (and less than subtle) hints, I recently started a new film blog called 7 Films, 7 Days, in which I plan to post a film review for each day of the week for as long as I can stand it. You can find the blog here, and follow the associated Twitter stream here.
Consequently, any film-related news will henceforth be blogged about (and tweeted) through the 7 Films alter-ego, leaving Ebonics and Irony focused on my other interests, chiefly fiction writing and music. The film blog gives me something to work towards, but more importantly helps to overcome my writer’s block.
The next couple of chapters for Horns Of The Apocalypse are on the way, although I’m ditching the World Cup setting in favour of a more generic “ooh aren’t all massive sporting events a load of old bawbags” tip. I might even start using this as a ‘proper’ blog, too. You lucky lot.
Anyway, thanks for reading. Keep watching this space for the next phase in my no doubt riveting adventures.
Blog image sourced from wanderingone‘s Flickr stream.
I’m Happy For Anyone Who Wants To Get Married…
…And Really, It’s Nobody’s Business But Their Own.
With the recent announcement on his blog, Neil Gaiman has confirmed that he is to marry his girlfriend of 8 months, Dresden Dolls lead singer Amanda Palmer.
There are those who might question why the pair feel the need to formalise their relationship. Others might raise their brow and mutter to themselves at the 16-year age gap between the two. Still more might consider a marriage after such a relatively short period of them being together.
To any and all of those people, I implore you: hush up and mind your own damn business.
The debate over the worth and validity of marriage is a prickly one, even in an age of supposed enlightenment and acceptance. Religion (or lack thereof) plays a pretty major part of the discussion, with some questioning why people who don’t follow a given religion would choose to have a religious service held in a place of worship, and others asking why anybody would want to get married at all. After all, marriage is expensive, divorce is rife and everyone’s heard the stories about how marriage and kids ruin your sex life and make you miserable, right?
There are those who even now could not get married even if they wanted to. Conversely, there are those who are forced into marriage against their will out of a twisted sense of duty and loyalty to their family. It’s no wonder the whole issue is so contentious, and why there seems to be no end to the debate in sight.
But honestly, people… what people do with their lives – whether that be dating within their gender, marrying their grandmother’s best friend, or chaining themselves to one another using matching nipple rings – is really only their business, and none of yours. Just because you subscribe to a religion, or don’t, or because something offends your morals or your sensibilities one way or the other, that gives you precisely zero call to interfere in the lives and lovelives of other consenting adults.
My good friend Mike gets married this year to his girlfriend of almost four years. They’re both affirmed atheists, yet they decided they wanted a church wedding before they would even start thinking about having kids. At first, this struck me as odd, but the moment I realised that it’s what would make them happy, any doubt left my mind. At that point you shouldn’t give it another thought. Life is short, and questioning or forbidding a couple from making an informed decision they have come to of their own free will is just another thing that’s stopping our species from evolving and moving on to the real problems in the world.
Not long after my dad died, I had a conversation with my mum about marriage, specifically asking her would she still have gotten married if she had the chance to do it over.
Her answer was no.
She told me that she and my dad would have stayed together even without the need to get married, and the only reason they did it in the first place is because of pressure from religious members of my mum’s family. It’s strange to think how far we’d have come along as a civilisation if more people lived in a manner that made them truly happy, rather than living as they felt they ought to.
I still haven’t decided whether I want to get married. The only reasons I can think of for myself to actually do it is for the financial benefits, or because I was seeing someone without UK citizenship and we both wanted dual nationality. If those are the best reasons I can think of, maybe it’s best I leave off the idea for the time being! Time and experience will tell, of course, but I have a feeling I’d have a hard time being in a relationship with someone who insisted that marriage was an inevitable part of being with that person.
Does that mean I think you shouldn’t get married? Of course not! Marriage may make you happier than you’ve ever been before, or it may ruin your life. The fact is, it’s your life to experience as you will, so to those who are doing what makes them joyful, I truly am pleased for you. For those who would rather control others and stop them living a fulfilling life, I hope soon you realise what it is that makes you happy, and embrace it.
ETA: Oops! Since I posted this, Mike and Laura have both pointed out that they’re not getting married in a church, as I mentioned above. Rather, it’ll be a civil ceremony held in some grounds that just happen to have a church on them! Admittedly most of the conversations I have with them are when either one or all of us are inebriated!