I belong to a fairly prominent golf forum site where I've bought and
sold equipment with perfect feedback, as well as an illustrious amateur
career on eBay (never underestimate the power of retail therapy for the
depressed... seriously). Anyway... I had a problem with a shaft I had
sold a year ago on eBay that the buyer returned. Despite following the
dispute process to the letter through eBay, he still left me negative
feedback. At the time, I was willing to chalk it up to him being a
douche and move on.
Fast forward eight months. I've
finally gotten around to cleaning out the spare closet and come across
the "defective" shaft. Deciding that I still don't see the cracking he
so adamantly insisted was present, I had it checked out with a local
clubmaker who assured me that it was sound. So I posted it for sale on
the classifieds of this golf site for a deeply discounted rate. Despite
the clubmaker's assurance, I still didn't want to take any chances. And
guess who comes along and makes a post flaming me on the site and
bitching about how little feedback means now (since I had perfect
feedback and he'd had "problems" dealing with me in the past). AND he
invokes emulating Jesus in doing so. ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME!!!!! I
couldn't decide whether to laugh or cry at the ridiculousness of the
situation.
Granted, I overreacted with my retaliation
when I not only explained my side of the story but also called out his
supposed values over publicly calling me out on the forums without so
much as a courtesy message expressing his concerns. It was quite the
visceral thrill though cutting his claims to pieces and being able to
prove he was lying (ah the joy of timestamps on digital photographs).
His uppance will come!
As a graduate student, I’m perpetually broke and short on time, yet
somehow seem to spend those scarce resources all too freely. However,
despite occupying one of the, arguably, bottom rungs on the ladder of
social importance, I still manage to treat the people that I encounter
with decency and respect. It utterly amazes me how many people out there
in the big bad world have no common decency or automatically assume the
worst of every single person around them. It’s no wonder that society
is plagued with fear when we expect nothing but the worst of each other.
I wouldn’t say that I’m an overly fluffy person, but I do believe
that our world could certainly be a happier, more peaceful place if
everyone simply demonstrated basic manners in their everyday life.
Somehow we need to find a way to slow life down and learn to interact
with each other across shared identities rather than continue to create
arbitrary boundaries. Sometimes a simple “thank you” is all it takes. Or
if you can’t manage that, just don’t automatically assume the worst
from everyone. Otherwise you might become cynical and jaded. Oh wait…
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