Best Or Beast?

By Author: Pamela Geiss
Total Articles: 4
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What is your attitude? Are you pleasant and courteous with your customers? Are you pleasant and courteous with other businesses? Or do you lash out and blame others for any and all things that go wrong? The Internet is a very impersonal place. As such, it seems to bring out the beast instead of the best in people. It works a lot like automobiles. Ever know someone who is kind and polite in person who turns into a bear when he/she gets behind the wheel of a car? It's the same principle. When people don't have to look you in the eye, they will sometimes say a lot of things they wouldn't think of saying if you were standing in front of them. Why? Well, some are maybe not as nice as they should be for whatever reason; maybe they've been "taken" before on or off the Net; maybe they are having a bad day and need to take it out on someone who can't get them back; having never met you, maybe they "forget" that you really are a real person with real feelings; or maybe they just aren't ever nice; but whatever the reason, it never pays to be unkind in return. That doesn't mean you have to sit still if you are accused of something ...
... you didn't do, but try to handle it in a professional and polite way. It's hard to do, but you just have to try not to take it personally. You know you are doing the best you can, and that, after all, is the most you can do. People tend to look for ulterior motives in everything now. You can't blame them for feeling that way. There are certainly enough people on the Net and off the Net who ARE doing everything with an agenda in mind. And I as well as you are really tired of getting "taken". I have been taken big time just this month. I tried a new service, paid for it and got nothing, nor did I get my money back. I ordered leads and got none, nor did I get my money back or my emails answered. I had a customer pay me for a big order with fraudulent funds, thus putting my PayPal account in the red. Fair? Not even a little bit. Hard on a small business with very little mark-up? You bet! But I also know there are good, honest business people out there, and I shouldn't blame them for the actions of the unscrupulous ones. We need to be more fair with each other. Perhaps we need to give the person the benefit of the doubt until if and when we find that he/she did have an agenda that took precedence over our best interests. Will we get taken? Yes, sometimes we will, but we will also find good opportunities and good businesses and good people. I specialize in getting traffic to sites. It's a hard job. Sometimes people's counters don't record correctly. Sometimes there are server problems on their side; the site works when I start it and it goes down some time after. Sometimes I have a server problem and that, of course, slows down my service. Sometimes they give me a url that exists but isn't the correct one. These, among others, are all causes for them thinking I'm not doing my job. Most people are very understanding and patient. Some, of course, are afraid I'm "taking" them, probably because someone else did it to them before they got to me. All these things are unfortunate, but part of life in business on or off the Internet. The best thing we can do is to try to help each other attain credibility and success. We need to be patient with each other and treat each other the way we would like to be treated under the same circumstances. We need to always be able to see the situation from the other person's point of view. And whatever you do, don't stoop down to the rude person's level. Answer the allegations politely. If he/she keeps writing you back and you haven't been able to disarm them the first time, probably the best thing to do is let them have the last word and try to forget it. Yes, it's hard not to get your feelings hurt or get irate, but try to put your energies where they are needed - to do the best for your customers!