Don’t be an idiot!

The second I touched it, my heart sank.  I selected the ‘Settings’ icon.  The app hiccuped.  It looked like it might work.  Then it froze.

I’m frustrated.  I wrote my post today.  I wrote it on my phone.  It’s convenient that there’s a WordPress app for the iPhone.  There is an inconvenience – I have to copy the text of what I write to the clipboard before I save the draft.  If I don’t the app might blow up.  I’ll lose what I wrote.

I forgot to copy the text today.  I lost what I wrote.

I’m striving to be 100% responsible.  I was telling my wife, Jennifer, about what happened.  I took responsibility for not copying the text and for using a piece of hardware that is two revisions behind (iPhone 3G).  Then I went into an angry tirade.

It occurs to me that something is amiss in the world.  Something is wrong when I feel I need to take responsibility for not using preemptive work-around to keep a product flaw from biting me in the ass.  I am owning the blame for a product someone else produced.

I have agreed to hundreds of EULAs (Pronounced Yoo-lah).  A EULA is the End User License Agreement you agree to each time you install a piece of software.  It’s up to 50+ pages long.  It reduces the sellers’  liability (or givers’, if it’s freeware).  It increases the burden of the user to support themselves and deal with product defects.  Each time I agree to a EULA I agree to accept less than.  A EULA is a license for a company to deliver less.

I have a confession to make.  I have put the burden of figuring out problems that were mine to solve on my Customers.  I have treated people like they were idiots because they couldn’t get something that I supported to work properly.  In some cases, they were idiots.  In many cases, I was the idiot.

I would make others wrong so I could be right.  Or make others wrong because I didn’t want to do the work.  My Customers suffered because of my pride and laziness.

I owe an apology:  I wasted your time.  I gave you less than.   I’m sorry.  I was wrong.  I was being an idiot.

Give your Customers ‘more than’.  Stop racing to the bottom and giving less.

Don’t be an idiot.  You’re better than that!

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