Getting Crankier

You know, I've never really thought of myself as a complainer; more like an observer with slant towards the snarky. I may not like something, but the majority of the time I am willing to just live with it. Rare are the times when I dislike something enough to let the people in charge of it know what is on my mind. Usually, I roll with it until I get home and then make all sorts of smart-ass comments about it. It might not help to improve service, but at least with that method the people running the place never had to feel bad about their operation because they wouldn't know what I really thought. I certainly would never return food at a restaurant and risk it coming back with a healthy dose of saliva. Complaining just wasn't worth it. At least, that's how I used to be.

I'm starting to worry I'm becoming more of a complainer as I get older. I'm noticing the ability to let people know about my dissatisfaction appears to be at an all-time high. For years every time I had some kind of problem with a computer program and it would generate one of those "We've made a report about this, would you like us to send it in?" boxes would pop up, I would always ignore it and just try to get back to whatever I was working on. But lately when a program crashes I tend to hit send. I want whoever made this thing to know it is not working as well as I would like it to and I would appreciate some kind of fix to be worked on. The days of simply being internally annoyed are over.

A perfect example of this happened just the other day, as I was trying to give directions down to the beach house. My friend was trying to find it online, but it turns out that the street the house is on has been incorrectly labeled as Belmont Avenue, not Street. (If you've ever been on Belmont Street you can understand why it might be glossed over. With a total of six houses on the entire road, it is not the kind of place that demands great attention.) Now, normally I would just find the street on the map, figure out the directions for myself and send them to my friend. But, for some reason I felt compelled to let Google Maps know of this oversight (and immediately felt like a dick for doing so).

I really hope this doesn't become a trend for me. When I worked in customer service there was nothing I disliked more than a complainer. I just hated the people who felt the need to make a big deal out of the fact that they had been marginally inconvenienced (and, considering that is what 95% of people do when you work in customer service, it is no surprise I did not stay in that profession for long). I really don't want to become one of them. Maybe I'm getting crankier as I get older, or maybe the heat is getting to me. Just know that if you ever see me get to the point that I'm sending food back at a restaurant, you should feel free to slap me upside the head.