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Adrift — Etiquette in A Digital Age

Adrift — Etiquette in A Digital Age

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Back from a Coast to Coast trip, on what we affectionally call the “mom’s tour” – coinciding with Thanksgiving weekend (Canadian). Grateful to still have mom’s.

While away, Vancity credit union’s online banking — and I gather inside the bank as well — so their entire banking system — shut down. Completely, for like 3 days. A bit of a disaster to say the least. We do about do 50% of our banking there. Hedging our bets agains the big banks:)

I followed along on twitter — at times aghast, at times amused, at times angry, and overall in general flabbergasted at how it was handled.
It was a tragicomedy intermingled with a Samuel Beckett play unravelling in real time.

Waiting and waiting and waiting.

One key takeaway — on how not to handle a crisis:

Keep tweeting the same generic message over and over again for 2 days. Delete tweets that have replies in the them, and disable comments on your CEO’s youtube public update.

Eventually, they started responding more personally. I wonder if it was too late. Many customers said they would leave , loudly, online at least. I wonder how many who said they were going to switch did in fact do so? It takes a lot of energy to switch.

While all this was going on we happened to be decluttering some old family stuff, largely boring paper intermingled with a few precious photos and letters.

Old obsolete tax returns – shred.
Old bills from an address and account that no longer exist, just rip up. The sound of shredding and the callouses on my fingers will linger.

What was intriguing were a few letters that were business correspondance – to do with taxes, correcting errors, banking and whatnot. The tone of them was so civilized! Almost over the top.

Now the writer of these letters was British, and from a different era. So right off the bat, they were more formal.

Phrases like “Yours most sincerely,” “Please take note that…“, “It has come to my attention“, “Best Regards”

…

Compare this to some of the charming tweets I saw Vancity get:
More or less “F*CK you and $*%&($*!~” And “You g-d** incompetent” and so on and so on. (Without the polite *s)

Basically extremely vitriolic and lacking completely in sensitivity for the receiver of these tweets. Who after all, is not a corporation (at least I’m assuming they don’t have a bot answering their tweets -hmmm….), but a person.

Regardless, the contrast between the level of politeness, attention to detail (on both sides of the correspondence – the replies to those paper letters were equally civil) and the way the tweets spiralled out of control was immense.

Now, I’m not saying customers should not have been angry. Vancity’s screwup was immense, and IMHO, has been showing cracks in its system since they “upgraded” in ways that they generally glossed over in the past. I got riled up too.

It was an excellent reminder that online communication has it’s own type of informality, that can get out of hand, and that, although no one in the future will develop callouses shredding the tweets and posts of today, it might be a good idea to think about that what you are sharing is public.

Side Note – Also Noticed:
Travel takes you out of your preconceived notions. You witness others behaviour (critically, if with compassion, it must be confessed) and it opens your eyes to your own mis-behaviours and foibles. I think it’s because when you aren’t in your own daily routine, your habits get opened up. You can’t quite be on auto-pilot. Goal for November: be more compassionate.

Day 20: Travel and Time

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I missed a posting day yesterday, due to not feeling well. Got me thinking about how when you travel you have this idealized sense of time in advance. For me, this meant I packed about 10 skeins of wool with me – with big ambitions for the knitting projects. I added to this horde by buying some cotton skeins here as well (5 ).
Well, with two days left here, what I did knit was:

  • one hat (finished it off here, started in Van – first hat – hooray!)
  • 1 pair baby booties
  • 1.5 dishcloths

Which means there was a bit of a disconnect between my knitting goals and the reality of the amount of time I’d have here. Partly, this was due to my continuing battle with my ear infection/cold/weirdo dizziness, partly it is due to fact that (again) I have the laptop here, and used it for client projects. I took precisely 2.5 full days off from client work (the aft of 24th to the 26th). This was dumb in retrospect. Doing work eats up a lot of time.

One project absolutely cannot wait as it has a launch date early Jan. Another (direct-mailer) was time sensitive and was completed before the 24th. But the other minor updates et al could perhaps have been left. Perhaps I could have a) sub-contracted some work out – not super realistic when it’s a relatively small amount of work or b) told clients “I am on vacation” .

So work and over-estimating how much free time I’d have to knit was a big factor in the fact that I’m taking 80% of the wool home with me:)

But I think most of us have that tendency, bringing “War and Peace” or some other lofty novel along with us to the pool, thinking – now this will be the moment I finish this book. Or, in my case, 20 mystery novels, where 2 would suffice. Or packing 3 dressy outfits, when one would do.

Travelling, whether or big adventure or a trip home, usually brings with it an element of surprise, or aspects that you couldn’t pre-plan for, and that eats up time. Might be customs, might be simply getting your bearings or getting into the time zone.

Either way, I’m not going to go home disappointed I didn’t knit 2 hats, 2 scarfs, and master turning of the heel (the baby booties used a Debbie Bliss pattern that did not turn the heel). Rather, I learned that scaling back my ambitions for time off should factor in the estimating of time the way one might estimate time for a client project: figure it out and double it! Also, sometime in the next year, I need to take a vacation without the box.

Cheers, and Happy New Year!

Day 18.5: What not to wear marathon

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I’ve been still feeling like crap. Got some homeopathic drops today – we’ll see if they work. I had meds from my doc, but as I am travelling in a province where you have to pay first and I’m going home soon, I am not going to see a doc here, but rely on the internet instead. Dangerous stuff hey:) Note to self: Always purchase health-insurance when travelling to la belle province.

While feeling crummy, I have 3/4 completed the baby booties, and watched hours of What Not to Wear. Most of the women were quite young (22-23), and hovering between adolescence and adulthood, therefore can be forgiven their fashion sins, no? Moi, on the other hand, laughed out loud when I saw one of the victims wearing a pair of sneakers I only recently threw out, and various other faux-pas.

What I could relate to was their sense of their own unique identity being tied into what they wore, whether it was to stand or to to blend in. Either way, their clothes were providing them with shelter. I don’t think I’d would bawl if Stacy and Clinton came and threw everything in my closet out, particularly with the 5 grand to spend:), but I might shed a tear or two for a few trusted friends.

It does inspire me to go through another bout of de-cluttering when I get home. My wardrobe consists largely of t-shirts and jeans. Time to dress age-appropriate, as they say.

Cheers,

Day 12: on the edge of snowmageddon

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[ On Wednesday, Environment Canada outlined predictions for a series of snowfalls in a weather bulletin, adding “could this be snow-mageddon?”] via globeandmail

Being 6 hours away from T.O., is close enough to wonder if s-m will occur here. It’s most definitely bordering on the point where Celsius crosses Farenheit with the wind chill factor. There is something to embrace about the crisp, ardently cool weather. Wait. I’m writing about the weather. Full stop.

I’ve knit 10 more rows in my hat, and am ready to cross over to working on 4 double point needles (which I’ve never done) and I just discovered I brought the wrong size set with me.  Which means I get to discover if there are any delicious wool shops in Montreal. Suggestions, mes amies?…

What I like about knitting is the same thing I like about the sharp weather. Both provide you with an intense focus and a clear and precise goal. The first is something long term, an object you can wear or use measured in years. The latter is more instant to instant. Dash indoors, quick. “If wearer if found shivering, administer hot chocolate immediately.”

It’s the same thing I like about travel. Time is suddenly restructured into a new framework, even though with the whole “mobile office” aspect of it, work is still happening. Again, in a more focused way.

I wanted to write about the Word of the Year post which may or may not appear in the fabulous Ms. Kane’s site, but I am still mulling them over.

Here’s a few rolling around my tongue:

  • grace
  • strength
  • poise
  • allow (seen on CK’s guest post)
  • courage

First I need to banish my apprehensions, or convert them into their possible French ancestors (apprendre?) and actually learn something from them.

This is an all over the map post, I’m down with it. This is about practice, not outcome.

Day 11: je rentre à Montréal

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First hit on youtube for this great song by Ariane Moffatt (just called Montréal – I always think of it by that bit of refrain).

Air Canada flight and general journey in brief:

  • crying wee baby behind us (poor lass) bawling her head off for take off , landing and in-between. Her 2 yr old sister’s ears probably hurt and she joined in on the landing. feel for the parents – they are clearly wiped.
  • guy beside crying baby drinks too much, falls asleep and starts sneezing uncontrollably for 10 or so sneezes. remarkably, doesn’t wake himself up.
  • try to muster some sympathy for the dude as he got a little baby puke-up on him
  • cab driver on way to flat is large chap from Haiti, cheerfully grooving to Neil Diamond and other such songs. He waves his hands (hopefully one is still on wheel) around, and I turn my head towards to the window to avoid looking at Mr. O otherwise would burst into hysterical laughter.
  • lots of snow on ground, and cool
  • the kitty kat here is being the most friendly we have ever seen her. 3rd time housesitting cat (first she had another chubby, lazy but beautiful cat whose name is now my nickname – sadly, cat passed away before we housecat again). GM is being playful, and purring her fur off. literally, all over black pants.

In short, life is sweet.

cheers et salut,

mlle d

Day 10: About to travel, how not to panic

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In allowing myself an extra 2 days for this 30 day posting gig because of travel, I forgot that the day before travelling was pretty darn intense. Coupled with doing a server upgrade recently, which meant I temporarily lost the database for this blog, and then had to go “under the hood”, way outside my comfort zone, well, let’s just say the dizziness I’ve been experiencing due to inner ear imbalance has quadrupled!

However, I’m happy to report I seem to have successfully done the restoration of the database, following a modified version of these instructions: http://www.tamba2.org.uk/wordpress/restore/
Modified because either their phpMyAdmin is older or vice versa. Mine also had an “Import” tab, which I needed to use, plus as the db existed already I had to actually go in and change the mySQL file. Aaargh.
I’m only a wee tech head, not an uber geek.

But I did it. Following the list system. I made a list and checked it thrice. That’s what I’m doing for the rest of travel planning. Mundane lists to follow perhaps. I haven’t made a point here, that I wanted to.
Perhaps the basic message is always the clearest: KISS and take lots of deep breaths.