PSA Regarding Missing Person Reports: Please check posts before you share! 99% of the "It Takes Only Seconds to Share" missing person reports I see shared on Facebook (especially for the very young children) have already been found (often LONG) before the post has been shared. While it takes only seconds to share, it also takes only seconds to click on the report to check for updates! Most missing person reports are updated once the person is found. There is usually an "UPDATE" at the very top of the article and often the title has even been changed to say, "FOUND," but for reasons I can't understand, Facebook's shared link somehow never reflects those changes. If you see them and...
If you've ever tried to call customer service in the last decade, you know how difficult and frustrating it can be. Getting through the phone tree to the right department can be difficult enough, but getting to speak to a live person might take an act of Congress. Then there's the challenge of getting what you want from a customer service rep who is paid a little more than minimum wage and has little to no customer service training and absolutely no vested interest in the company for which he or she is working. If calling THAT company again gives you nightmares, read on! 1. Getting through the Automated Audrey Phone Tree If the above picture doesn't send shivers...
It’s one of the most pervasive and dangerous habits in America today and it's destroying your relationships! You see it all the time, but you probably never thought much about it. It's, unfortunately, at work in oral, face-to-face conversations and written exchanges over social media, text and email. I call it Conversational ADD. Here are a few examples: Mary posts on Facebook asking for help for problem X only to have Jane give her solutions for problem B. Jane didn't read Mary's entire post and assumed she knew what it was about. After the confusing exchange gets heated, Jane unfriend's Mary after six years of treasured friendship. Tom emails a company to report some problems with his product (or service) and receives...
I posted this on my Facebook wall recently, but thought I'd share it here as well and expand on my original post because so many using Facebook to connect these days are frustrated and confused. Some urgent prayer requests have gone unanswered and the friends who posted them were left feeling as if nobody cared! In our microwave society of techie EVERYTHING, we have become accustomed to Minute Rice, Instant Coffee, and Fast Friends. But the truth is that friendships online take as much effort as they do OFFline. And now that Facebook has made social media a bit less social with each passing day, it is going to take a bit more effort on our part to maintain friendships even...
Last week, I reprinted an article I wrote a while back on the Influence of Texting because technology has long been eating away at our effective communication skills. Technology is a wonderful thing in moderation or as a tool, but not only has it been eroding our face-to-face communication skills, it has also been replacing our real life relationships! How many times have you seen someone on their phone while driving, shopping, or even at a party? Ignoring real people while playing games or texting on a phone has become such a *thing* that I recently saw a photograph on Facebook of a sign on a day care center. It told parents to get off their phone and pay attention...
