Yesterday we had to check the calendar, to see if it was a full moon. Believe it or not, there really is a correlation between full moons and bizarre email complaints – this time, though, the answer isn’t that easy.
But we had a long and strange back-and-forth exchange that spilled from email onto a messageboard, with a long-time subscriber and customer who was having a problem watching the streams on Smoking Flicks. We tried valiantly to explain that the problem he was having was due to the setup of either his computer, browser or Media Player, and that if he gave us exact details on the problem, we’d help him troubleshoot it. But he took offense at being asked for exact details, saying it was much too much work to give us the error code that he was seeing in his Media Player – and instead started flaming us on a messageboard, saying that it wasn’t his problem, it was ours. After numerous explanations, and his refusal to read or consider them rationally, we gave up.
Our rant isn’t based on a belief that most people are like him – in fact, most aren’t. Most of the people who’ve contacted us over the last 12 years with problems of various sorts, have been very nice and reasonable people, and we think almost all of them “went away satisfied.”
But we do occasionally hear from people who are “problem customers.” And it’s for those people that we indulge ourselves with the following rant:
The internet, and personal computers, are not like a toaster.
You can’t always just take them home, plug them in, and toast a bagel.
They are complicated, and occasionally unreliable.
And “consuming” a product via the internet depends on a lot of “interconnecting parts,” some of which, some of the time, don’t want to talk to each other. In fact, some of them (such as Microsoft and Apple products) are often based on a corporate philosophy of not talking to each other.
So while it’s very often an easy matter to plug in your computer and do whatever you’d like on the net – there are times that it isn’t that easy. And there are times when troubleshooting is necessary.
We wish that weren’t the case – we’d rather be out in the sun than answering emails and troubleshooting problems.
But it’s part of the price we pay for the connectivity we enjoy in 2006.
Problems with our products, thankfully, are pretty rare.
But if you run into a problem – don’t sit on it for 15 days and then shoot off an angry email and an angry messageboard post, like our friend did earlier this week.
Accept the fact that things don’t always work the way we want them to – contact us (or whoever else the problem may be with) – accept the fact that the problem is very possibly on your end – and work with us so that we can help you fix the problem.
We’re here to help. But we need you to let us help.
Otherwise, you can always just go toast a bagel and read a book. Chances are, you won’t ever run into a problem doing that.
We know most of you already know this, but we needed to get it off our chest. Thanks for your patience in reading this – and have a great weekend 
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