It seems like just about everyone has an opinion about one thing or another these days. Actually, it's probably nothing new, as the old saying goes... "opinions are like assholes, everyone has one". I think what makes things different these days is the fact that everyone feels they are entitled to share those opinions whether others want to hear them or not.
In fact, there is a whole community here on Hive dedicated to ranting and complaining. No offense @cmplxty, this post isn't directed at you in any way. In fact, it actually has nothing to do with HIVE at all.
I was sitting on the couch with @mrsbozz the other night doing something (probably watching football), when my good friend @a4xjeeper called me up.
You might remember, he recently purchased a building in the mid sized town where we grew up. After a bit of run around with the city planning and zoning board, he was finally able to start getting to work on the building to make it work for his business. Basically, he is just putting some holes in the wall so he can install large garage doors.
That way his trucks can sit inside where it is safe during the night instead of out in the parking lot. It's really a win win for everyone.
Unfortunately, his building sits very close to another building that houses a restaurant that is just open during breakfast and lunch. People often "overflow" into his parking lot which leaves less space for his business. He started putting up cones and you can probably guess what happened next.
Yep, people complained. I actually heard it first from a friend (who isn't on HIVE) that was eating at the restaurant one morning. The guys at the table next to him were complaining that the jerk (probably not the word they used) that bought the building next door won't let people park there.
Fast forward a few weeks and @a4xjeeper finally had to put up these cement barriers. You see, the parking lot for the other building connects to one of two major roads in the city. The parking lot on the other side of the barrier in a round about way connects to the other busiest road in the city. As you might imagine, people would often cut through to skip the light and of course it was always at a high rate of speed.
After a couple of the contractors working on his building and a few of my friends own employees almost got run over in their parking lot, he finally put up the barriers.
That's when the fun started...
As I mentioned, my friend called me the other night. It turns out there is a Facebook page called "xxxxxxxx Complains". For obvious reasons, I substituted the name of our hometown with xxxxx's for privacy reasons. I have little doubt there are probably hundreds of pages like this on Facebook though.
It turned into this big discussion about how "the person who put up those barriers" was breaking fire code by blocking that path. In fact, my friend contacted the police, fire department, city, and the owner of the other building before he put them up. Due diligence done.
People just want to be right though... Someone suggested they should just hook some tow chains up to them and move them out of the way.
Believe it or not, someone doubled down and actually did. Now the police are really involved. When my friend called he was talking about how hilarious it was that people were getting so worked up, but I could tell deep down it was really bugging him. There were close to 100 comments on the post with people complaining. The biggest complaint? That they use that path to cut through (something that is illegal by the way).
How inconvenient for them that they can't knowingly break the law!
He should be ashamed!
Unfortunately, some folks took it one step further and started spreading false information about his work on the building that he bought. Sadly, that's the world we live in now. His knee jerk reaction was to get a lawyer involved and file some kind of defamation of character lawsuit. Unfortunately, these days while you might win in traditional court, in the court of public opinion, you will almost always come out the loser. Even if you are right.
You are almost better just sitting on your hands and letting it blow over because more often than not something new will come along the next week to preoccupy them.
For me, this is one of the single largest drawbacks of social media. It's not that people didn't have opinions before, but they either kept them to themselves, or they shared them at the local bar where people just dismissed them because they thought you were drunk.
Now, they splash them across social media for everyone to see. A few people rally behind those opinions and more jump on board until you have this massive wave of stupidity coursing across the Internet.
I saw this quote the other day and it seemed to fit really well with this post:
“The world was still big. The country was still vast. You could just be a little person, with your own little life and your own little thoughts. You didn’t have to have an opinion, and nobody cared if you did or did not.”
-Chuck Klosterman
It's from a book called "The Nineties" that I haven't read, but an acquaintance of mine has and he shared that. I was telling @tarazkp just the other day that I have started to realize in my old age, being right isn't the most important thing anymore. Does it kill me to let things slide sometimes? You bet, but in the grand scheme of things, it doesn't usually give you peace. Instead, it just draws more ranting and raving from the masses.
Does your local community have a "complains" page? I've seen them for cities, schools, probably even churches believe it or not. It's a sad sad slope we are sliding down...
I truly think some people would die if they didn't have something to complain about.
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