People Should Come With Warning labels


Lately more and more companies which I buy from on line are asking for reviews of their service and their products. I don't respond to all but if I have something good to offer I will. I had avoided negative reviews until just lately.

 Generally if I have had a bad experience I will just not buy that product again or worse yet totally avoid that company. Sierra Trading Post, which as a treasured internet company, got my first smash review and I have not done business with them since. Nor will I. On the other end I have, in my haste to prepare for a deadline, bought the wrong product from a treasured online art supply store. My bad but I gave a negative review so others would not make my same mistake. They wrote asking what they could do to make it right. Company A never did.

 This experience has given way to me mentally writing reviews of people. Which gave way to shortening it up to warning labels. In my youth I internally wrote dire headlines for my mother. Coed Arrested at Border. Mother said she thought her daughter was safe at the dorm.

Warning labels must be more succinct. Mine might read: Warning: Photographer. Inclined to make frequent stops. To which you could add constantly interrupts serious conversations with "Look at that!"

 I had a friend who due to mid morning drinking habits should never be contacted after ten if you wanted an answer to a serious question. If that was unavoidable you should tape record the conversation because you would need it when she forgot it. In Lost in Space, the old version, the robot waved its arms and said, "Warning Will Robinson. Danger."

 My robot would say when I meet a new friend:

 Warning, Jacqui, NARCISSIST: Do not expect a good relationship. 

 Warning, Jacqui, if you are attracted to him he is an alcoholic.

 The increased use of marijuana has prompted another label: Warning Smoker: Not Dependable.

 Sadly some of these warnings don't become clear until I have been burned, used or abused. And while you can smell alcohol on a person's breath when you meet face to face, it isn't evident in a internet chat (though using all caps or failing to edit might be a clue). 

 Narcissists are enchanting and entertaining and can rope you in. Look at all our current head of state deluded. Some have even learned to fake an apology so you can be roped back in.

 Then there is the pinned to the top post in Facebook groups. It states the standards to which everyone agrees they will conduct themselves. But nobody enforces that.

 Am I going to have to fall back on the warning label of my youth: TRUST NO ONE. Or the revised quality control version of my project engineer years: INSPECT AND VERIFY.

Comments

  1. Ien in the KootenaysMay 14, 2018 at 8:31 AM

    I would go with Inspect and Verify, it leaves room for hope. Love your interruptions as a photographer. That is me too. I am strictly aim and click, no fancy lenses. A bit of cropping andbthat is it. But capturing the beauty I have been allowed to live in is a minor obsession. Distracted driving because it is all so beautiful is a real danger I have to guard against.

    ReplyDelete
  2. JBinford-BellMay 14, 2018 at 11:35 AM

    It always amazes me when people do not notice that beauty that stops me in my tracks or mid sentence. The older I get the more I know there are wastes of time. My time. I need more time to stop and capture the beauty of the moment.

    ReplyDelete

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