that's not how the internet works

[dragonlady7]

Here's a thing!
So we sell on Amazon, right?
TWICE this month we've had problems with customers not entering their addresses correctly, and then when the shipment goes missing or is returned to sender, their solution?
They EMAIL US with a DESCRIPTION of how to get to their house!!
Yes! Think that through for one second. They send an email, with their fingers, to the SELLER ON AMAZON, who is, might we mention, NOT the US Postal Service, right? I don't think there's any confusion there. I don't think you have to have any special insider knowledge to understand this. We're a seller, on a marketplace website, and I get that people get confused about how Amazon works, I'm not judging them for that at all, but--
They send US an email, DESCRIBING THEIR HOUSE. "It's just past the school!" "I typed A instead of 2, but it's the apartment building with a toystore on the first floor!" "The doorman's name is Armando!"

Like, how the fuck is that going to solve anything?? I'm not going to DRIVE TO ITALY and hand-deliver your missing package for you? I've just finished explaining to you that our involvement ends when the mail carrier picks up the package and that we have no control over what happens after that?

I'd let it go with just a single WTF if it were one person, but it's now TWO SEPARATE PEOPLE who seem to share this belief.

BUDDY, if your ADDRESS is NOT COMPREHENSIBLE TO THE POSTAL SERVICE then it doesn't matter if you DESCRIBE THE BUILDING to, wait for it, THE AMAZON SELLER. This is a fundamental disconnect and you're not solving anything!

This is also not industry-insider knowledge, I feel. I genuinely feel this. Correct me if I'm wrong.

(OK I keep building up "i have to make a Significant Post" on here and then by the time I get the post window open I forget what the Big Thing I was going to say was, so, I'm just going to post this like a Tumblr shitpost and not worry so much.)

Comments

[toujours_nigel]

oh dear. people are... interesting at times.

and dw doesn't need Significant Posts, psh.

[dragonlady7]

When it happened one time we were like oh ha ha, great, and rolled our eyes.
when it happened a second time we were like WHAT IS WITH PEOPLE.

[lazaefair]

There is no required Significance Threshold for DW posts. I have no intention of treating mine with any more weight than I did my tumblr.

[dragonlady7]

This is true!

I'm just, I suppose, uncomfortably aware that I have a lot fewer subscribers than I had Tumblr followers, and have this low-grade anxiety that I'll turn people off, somehow. It's normal, surely, to be anxious like that? I just have to get over it.

I wish I could be more organized in my thoughts, though. That's just an ongoing thing. But yes, I know, I don't have to fret, I'm just not to the point of not thinking about it yet.

[lazaefair]

I mean, we all crave validation. But unless you're planning on monetizing your social media and somehow becoming an influencer or whatever, I've found it to be a lot less stressful for me to just...own my space. It's not anyone else's, it's mine. It's a representation of who I am, and who I am won't please everybody.

Fandom offers quite a lot of benefit in the cost/benefit analysis, but ultimately it's not enough of a benefit that it'd be worth the cost of becoming another source of stress and anxiety. It's not a job, no one's paying me to make my journal pleasing to them.

[dragonlady7]

This is all true!
But never underestimate just how much social anxiety I can manage to have, while barely ever manifesting any in my real life! I spent half of today on-edge and bitterly regretful about a disagreement that it took me until I was walking home to remember I hadn't even been involved in, my sister had texted me a one-line summary of how badly she was getting along with her mother-in-law during a currently ongoing family visit, and I just absorbed it and got upset without really, like... noticing. I really had to, eventually, pause and breathe and recognize that this wasn't something that in any way involved me.
I really, really, really really, really, can absorb bad vibes like a sponge, and so if I look at my own recent posts page and think "man if I were following me I'd find this so annoying" sometimes it is almost as bad as if someone actually said that. It's uncanny and weird and not very in-line with how I think of myself at all!!
So it's helpful for me to remind myself that it doesn't matter, but it's also helpful for me to just be thoughtful about how I curate the space in the first place, so that if (god forbid) someone was like "i don't like how you run this place" i could be like "well I've given it more thought than you pal so you can fuck off", instead of "oh my god are they right? Wait that's absurd!" because for my ridiculous brain, sometimes the pause between that question mark and the "Wait" realization is uncomfortably long.

[lazaefair]

Ooooh, I totally get all that. I have worked myself up into a right old state on behalf of characters in fanfiction before. I’ve played out whole internet arguments in my head before I realized I was doing it. I guess I deal with that anxiety by going in the opposite direction, becoming defiantly ornery.

[dragonlady7]

LOL, defiantly ornery is a good way to describe that-- but in my case, largely from some pretty bad self-owns at formative psychic moments, in order for me to be defiantly ornery, I have to be sure of myself in the first place. Which, mostly, I am, just by dint of being old and having a lot of practice at being me, but especially when I'm sort of new to a space, or uncomfortably aware of having neglected a space for a long time, ahem like this one, I need to kind of feel my way around first and establish a footing from which to be defiantly ornery, going forward. Because man there is absolutely nothing worse than being like "Ha everything is exactly as I want it" and then instantly noticing, like, you're clearly surrounded by the wreckage of not having been paying the slightest attention to how things are.

This is why largely I'm chill about typos but occasionally I am utterly mortified by typos. You'd think it's the same, but sometimes it's really not.

[lazaefair]

Because man there is absolutely nothing worse than being like "Ha everything is exactly as I want it" and then instantly noticing, like, you're clearly surrounded by the wreckage of not having been paying the slightest attention to how things are.

Fair point, fair point. That being said: I still don't think there's a Significance Threshold for DW posts. I remember all kinds of silliness and ephemeral thoughts passing through LJ; humans gonna human no matter the platform.

[paean]

The more you post, the happier I am because I am greedy and want to eat all the words. *inset Cookie Monster sounds*

[toujours_nigel]

^ yes this.

[dragonlady7]

*makes strangled cuteness noise* well thanks.

[dragonlady7]

aww you're cute. thanks!

Oh lord, customer service flashbacks

[seramarias]

So much of this. Argh. It seems very hard for people to grasp that there are multiple 'moving parts' in this whole deal. I worked for a shopping network, for a while, and the percentage of people who seemed to get that the voice on the phone (me), the host presenting the item on air, the warehouse workers who picked and packed it, and the postal workers who delivered it were ALL DIFFERENT PEOPLE who did not necessarily talk to each other directly. It's the weirdest damn blind spot.

Re: Oh lord, customer service flashbacks

[(Anonymous)]

I blame, like, TV shows and stuff. And commercials. They always edit for brevity, because honestly yes who wants to see the whole process, but then it reinforces how invisible the whole logistical structure is. In the commercial, the person sees the thing they want, calls up the company, talks to the actor spokesperson directly, the actor puts it in a box and it arrives at their house, and absent any serious contemplation, people genuinely just sort of internalize that and think that's how it works, Ashton Kutcher brings them their Coolpix camera personally and if they don't know how to use it they just call him and he'll show up and push the button for them.
(LOL that's how long i've been working here, we had promotional materials with Ashton Kutcher on them when I started. I know, right? Who? What?)

Re: Oh lord, customer service flashbacks

[dragonlady7]

LOL i post anonymous comments not logged in on the daily just to make sure my settings still allow it, that's all! i meant to do this!