Tag: society

What’s the Point of Getting Up?

Each time we fall down, the world tells us to get up and dust ourselves. And then get going again.

Setbacks are stepping stones; they come to those who can face it and transform said setbacks into a positive force. Only those who can endure will endure and emerge as victorious.

The universe only pushes us down to see if we can get up again. It’s how nature weeds out the immaterial and unworthy and finds true triers. And so, we should always get back up.
For how long, though?

Perseverance — it’s one of the first lessons we learn as children. Never give up no matter how hard things become. It’s a good lesson, but often misleading.

After a certain point, it makes no sense to pursue what we know is a lost cause. Sometimes we have to give up. Sometimes, we have to accept defeat in a gracious way and move on with whatever pride that’s left in us.

There’s no point in banging a crooked nail over and over again hoping to straighten it. There’s no point in a father telling his daughter he always wanted a son — it’s a girl, dad, deal with it.

But if it’s not too late to change what’s happened, then we’re not trying hard enough. No matter how many failures we face and how many times we get back up again, if we’ve already made up our minds to lose, there’s nothing else to do.

If the heart’s not in it, no game is worth playing, and no fall isn’t worth getting up from.

It’s a Fine Line

Her mother once told her, “Handcrafts are a girl’s best friend.”

She had always had a knack for weaving tight knots. She adored the complexity in the bonds and the scrutiny that it demanded.

It was like meditation for her; first in, then out, squirming through loopholes and around shady corners. Whenever she took a wrong turn, someone always showed up, armed with help. Every plan she wove became an adventure, and every day an action-packed, adrenaline-pumping endeavour.

And as the lawmakers came after her, they realised she was best friends with the crafty and not the handcrafts.

Support Unsupportive

If you’ve been on the internet at all, you’ll know too well how hard it is to figure some apps out. We’re always using these apps — blogging tools, photo editors, text editors, proofreaders, budget managers, ebook readers, reminders (my saviour) — you get the point. These aren’t luxury apps either, they’re necessities. That’s why it’s important that these apps are proper. For the most part, my apps are great. They’re pretty straightforward so I don’t have to toil much. Not all products are like that, though. Some products work fine until they don’t anymore. When that happens, I panic.

Because when something isn’t working as it should, I have no choice but to call customer support. I can’t stand the idea of asking for help. Not because I’m an egotistical bastard, but because customer support isn’t supportive at all. You almost never get the feeling that the person sitting on the other side is, in fact, a person. They’re more like robots with western names.

Whenever I write to the customer support team of a product, I get an automated reply. Which is alright, because that’s how they acknowledge mail. But then they reply to my message with another message that makes me wish they hadn’t bothered at all. It’s incredible how support teams treat customers. They scatter words that make no sense and punctuation that makes everything worse. Some emails echo satire — without intention. “Welcome to the world’s best support team,” they say when they’re far from helpful, and not even close to good. Sure, I can tolerate the waiting time, but I can’t tolerate inhuman response.

“Sorry for your troubles. Any inconvenience is regretted.” That’s the most passive aggressive statement anyone can say to another person, let alone someone asking for help. Of course, the inconvenience is regretted, but what are you doing about it, apart from declaring said nonexistent regret?

I can understand, though. Supporting is tough. It’s exhausting to answer the same questions to a bunch of people who refuse to understand. It’s tough playing the educator to people who’re determined to act stupid. It’s stressful to deal with angry customers across the globe — when more than half of them don’t even speak your language.

Nevertheless, at the end of the day, the customer is king — or queen. And that’s why patience is a virtue. That’s why humaneness is a value. In this age when people tweet hate-words to get the attention of a company, it’s just too easy to bring corporations down.

But it’s not about bringing corporations down with the “power of the people.” It’s just plain hurtful to open my inbox and look at a reply that says, “Your patience is appreciated,” when I know that’s not true. I’d rather decode the product for myself, even if I have to read an unhelpful help document. And when it goes beyond me, it’s easier still to give up altogether. Besides, if one product fails, there are a hundred alternatives online.

Ever had trouble with customer support? Sure you have. What did you do?