I found myself getting really frustrated at a website last night.
My husband had forgotten to order something, and so asked me to do it while he drove home from work.
I’d never used the site before so he had to guide me.
“You can login top right,” he said.
“Where?”
“Top right, where it says ‘login’.”
“It doesn’t say ‘login’ anywhere.”
Good start.
I eventually found the login half way down the page.
That really set the tone for the whole exercise.
Everything I needed to do didn’t work, or wasn’t where it was supposed to be.
To cut a long story short, the order went a bit pear-shaped!
I found myself feeling angry. Really angry.
What is it about being online that does this to people?
People have to be angry.
It’s almost a given to rage against the machine.
But sadly, it’s often not the machine or website we rage against.
It’s a person who has posted something on a community site, looking for help or assistance.
They then get a comment from someone (often anonymous) which is rude and unnecessary.
Why do people feel the need to do this?
What happened to the old adage ‘if you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all’?
I must admit something similar happened to me not so long ago.
I posted about a new meditation group on a community Facebook page.
As part of the post I included my blog for that week which talked about ‘rest and digest’ and the relaxation response.
Very quickly there was a comment asking for:
‘…a link to peer reviewed scientific analysis that proves/supports the claims made.’
He could have genuinely wanted this, but it just felt a bit snipey.
I decided to go with the former and provided a link to a fantastic article from Monash University.
To which he replied ‘thank you’.
Phew.
But you can see how easy it is to misunderstand something and overreact, and because we’re behind a keyboard it’s as though it doesn’t matter.
It’s not like you’re saying it to their face.
But you are effectively.
Sometimes you just need to take a few deep breaths before you take to the keyboard, and definitely a few more before you hit send.
Anyway, our order finally got sorted and all was good in the end.
I just hope I don’t have to use that website again!
Ann