Tuesday, October 12, 2010

The downside to Facebook

Everyone knows of Facebook, and if you don't I would like to know what rock you have been living under?!

The past year I have learned some real downsides to Facebook which make me want to shut down my account and walk away.  Really I deal with enough crap in my life that I don't feel I need something like Facebook to make matters worse on me or my family.

So those who know have an idea of the positives, or at least people think they are.  Reconnecting with old friends, you know the ones you have not seen in 17 years, the ones that after reconnecting you remember why you lost touch!  Keeping in touch with out of town relatives or friends is a good thing about Facebook.

But there are the downsides....

The friends who's relationships/marriages have ended because of crap on Facebook.  You know the private email from an old flame telling you they have never forgotten about you. The positive to marrying my high school sweetheart is I don't have many of those!

The people who read too much into your status updates...

The friends who you find out you are no longer friends (and good friend, like big brother type) because they removed you as a friend from Facebook. Totally happened to me, and the kicker, it is my neighbour...

The family who see something you post and freak out because they think the something catastrophic has happened not realizing that if it really had, you would have called them from the ambulance.

Then you have those ones, the people who just have nothing good to say.

Today I had someone post something nasty on my Grace Announcements page.  I immediately read it over a few times before I got all freaked out, they claimed they ordered over a month ago and didn't receive anything.  I scanned the name and it didn't look familiar.  I looked through my order forms on my desk, nothing.  I did a search in my email, nothing.  I pulled up my online shopping cart software, nothing.  I went the last place I could try, PayPal to look there.  They did after all claim at how much they paid for shipping... and there was nothing there.  This person was not listed in any of the 5 places that their order would show up. I would not let up there, technology has let me down many times in the past, that is part of running an online business. I sent the person an email on Facebook and they come back and tell me that they had not ordered anything from me... are you freakin kidding me???? I spent 40 minutes going over everything to see what could have happened to their order.

I was horrified that there was a customer out there like this, that had been waiting over a month for their order.  They didn't call the office or send an email.  Customer service is our top priority,we will go above and beyond in a situation to make it right.  But how do you make a situation like this right?

This person turns around and blocks me (because I am going to go all Facebook crazy on them or something???) and removes all of their bad comments from my page.

Do you just wake up on the wrong side of the bed and think that today is the day I am going to have "fun"on facebook?

Yep so there you have it, today was one of those days when I would be so happy to close my Facebook account and walk away...

3 comments:

Unknown said...

that is so not cool! should be reported as Facebook harassment at least.

I've thought of closing my account a lot this year.

Being the Pastor's Wife... every time someone leaves the church because of something they disagreed with in regards to what my hubby preached or said or did, they remove me from their facebook.

Like I did something wrong. It's been a mess this year. Social media has made people feel a lot freer than they'd normally be and not for the good. Don't even get me started on all the people that read into something they shouldn't have and made a mountain out of a mole hill.... gesh!

Anonymous said...

For those with Exe's, like Pandora's Box, some things are best left unopened. Curiosity got the better of me and now I feel really miserable. You can't just "forget" something so best to avoid looking if you think you might find something that will hurt you. If you think normal communication, like a phone call is too awkward, then you should think twice about using Facebook. As noted it's very easy to over-analyse what is posted as well, so its a really dumb thing to do. Wish I'd thought this through sooner!

Unknown said...

We may experience a lot of concerns when browsing through different social websites and it's kinda scared how social media nowadays is getting worse because crimes are committed because of these sites. But I think the customer service call centers of these social networking sites are doing their best in order for their clients to stay loyal to them, and makes sure that everything will be okay.