Howsheseesit's Weblog

Yeah, I have one on everything, but I try to be objective.  Don’t always hold me to that.  I’m human.  Feel free to discuss, I ♥ discussions.

11.20.2009

Bad Ebay Feedback, Are you stupid?

So the other day I was checking my Ebay account to see if one or both of these girls who had recently purchased items had left feedback.  Sure enough after a nice little email asking them why they hadn’t left feedback and if they were satisfied I noticed my number had increased by one.  I figured it was a friend who bought an item, but it actually was one of the Ebay feedback dodgers and this is literally what it said, “quick.”  I am not shitting you.  “quick” no capital letters, no punctuation, just “quick.”  Are you so busy or such an asshole that the only word that comes to mind is “quick?”  I mean I do appreciate that she at least left feedback and that it was positive, but it just doesn’t seem appropriate.  I’m sorry, but that is not how you leave feedback especially when it’s weeks after the item was shipped and I gave you a solid positive feedback.

I did learn a lesson though:  If you are selling an item, don’t leave the customer feedback until they leave you some.  If I had followed this new rule I would have probably written “Fast.”

10.24.2009

Status Updates-  We all have them, we all use them, but how far are we willing to go?

Facebook, Twitter, Myspace; on any of these social networks, at just about anytime, you can know what your high school crush, your best friend, or even your parents are doing.  Now I’m not saying I’m not just as guilty as the next when it comes to this (I have a FB, two Twitters [one is for my business], and four Myspaces [also business & other endeavors]), but you have to question what all this updating is doing to us as a society.  Even more alarming is the fact that this isn’t a generation thing, this is a human thing, this is what we’ve become.  Not only are Gen Xers and Millennials updating the fact that they saw a movie, heard a song, told a joke, found a website, ate a burger, lost a friend, updated a status, but our parents, even some of our grandparents, are bombarding the ones they know with play-by-plays of their life.  It’s like we are all stars in our own little worlds were we pick and choose, block and invite, others.

Now here’s where I’m conflicted.  Part of me thinks it’s amazing.  I keep in touch, and quite easily, with people I might never have seen again except if I went to a reunion of some sorts ten years down the line.  We’re brought together in a time when people are very closed off.  BUT the thing bringing us together is technology, and in a sort of isolating way, if that makes any sense.  Why take the time to visit with people, have a meaningful conversation, when all you have to do is update them via status, comment, email, whatever.  There truly is something to be said about sitting down, slowing down, and looking someone in the eye, relating with your spoken words, not your typed puns and hidden meanings.

And let’s face it, these networks have turned us all into stalkers in a sense.  We stalk people we don’t even really know or care to stalk, but we do it anyway.  My mom and I have talked about it, and she’s told me how glad she is that Facebook wasn’t around when she was in college.  The worry, doubt, misconstrued meanings, that come with trying to get to know new people, friends or otherwise.  I know I definitely have had opinions about people, due to the tone I gave what I was reading, that later turned out to be completely false.   I mean the meer fact that anyone (unless you keep it on private, which I suggest) can just peer into our lives and turn what we’ve written, done, thought in the moment, into the complete opposite, is scary.  Not to mention the fact that we’ve made it so easy for the natural-born stalker freaks to do what they do.

To clarify, I love my social networks.  I love being able to post and share, talk and discuss, read and review, but every positive has its negative and sometimes I think we need to just slow down, walk outside, and breathe… then blog about it.