“How was your experience at CVS? Did you enjoy your visits at the chiropractor’s office? Pease rate how friendly your representative was at Verizon. Did you enjoy driving past In and Out?
It has gotten ridiculous. In a given week, I get 3 to 5 texts on my phone to complete a short, five-minute survey. I get surveys in the mail. How was your Hospice care? Addressed to my sister. Seriously?
Think about it, people. If the survey is left untaken, don’t send it three more times. Know that the person cannot fill it out. Let it go. Drop it, already.
Everyone wants a piece of my time. If I walk out of a store and don’t purchase, please state the reason why. If I buy shampoo on Amazon, please rate your transaction. If I buy on ebay, please give feedback. When did all of this start? How do we get it to stop?
I went to a quilt show in my town a few months back. Each quilt had a plaque of information with a QR code. I didn’t want to do that, just wanted to look at the quilts. Then the docent asked me to put on a white glove since I would be touching the quilt to see the backing fabric.
“No, I won’t be touching them,” I said. “I don’t quilt.”
The docent explained how earlier in the day a woman had been rude to him about it. Fifteen minutes later I knew why. The docent felt obliged to follow me from quilt to quilt, telling me exactly what I would’ve read, had I scanned the QR codes. The place was closing in fifteen minutes. I didn’t need to know all the details. I can go to museum, look at a few things and then leave. I don’t need to study every single thing inside of it. I just wanted the flavor of the quilt show, not a whole sit-down dinner. The docent shoved it all down my throat.
The docent did try hard. He showed me the binary quilt, where the people could be male or female. I didn’t tell him that he meant non-binary. He was already talking way more than I needed right then.
I don’t do surveys when they pop up. I don’t send the Hospice surveys back in the mail, especially if I get it three more times. I don’t go to apps to pay my bills. I let the bills come in the mail. Then I sit down once a month and pay them all at once. My Capitol One bill didn’t come. I called and asked for a copy of the statement. I was told to download the app and then I could see everything.
No, No. No. Companies can train younger people to do all those things. I am not going to go searching for my bills every month. Send me a statement and I will pay it. Period.
Technology is making our lives more complicated and is time-consuming. It’s not up to us to do all of this work for companies for free.
Take a stand and say no. I did.
FIRST DATE, WORST DATE EVER! 