The Poop Deck

All this talk has reminded me of something that really did embarrass me. Or shamed me and made me feel like slime, at the very least.

About three years ago, I did a short stint in "We Love In-Depth Reviews!" . Some of you may actually remember when that group was quite active. (Anybody know if they still are at all?) For those who don't know, WLIDR is/was a group of folks who perused the Public Review Page and awarded in-depth and good reviews.

Anyhow, I'm not sure how it goes now, or how it went before I was a member, but for the time I was a member, we reported the Public Reviews we awarded in a group-access-only forum.

We would also, uh, complain about certain types of reviews we might see and/or reviewers who were consistently disrespectful or some such in their public reviews.

There was one day, I was tootling along on my shift for awarding public reviews. I had one of WLIDR's sigs plus a link to the public "put your thank-you's here if you like" forum saved so that when I sent gift points, I'd just have to click my cursor into the award box and hit "Ctrl + V."

Sometimes, I'd add a little extra to award messages.

Sometimes, in the middle of a shift, I'd get fed up with seeing the same reviewer over and over again, being an ass to all kinds of different people via reviews of their stories.

I'm still not 100% sure how it happened.

But, in a bout of anger and frustration, I headed over to the private group forum and let loose a small rant about one such individual. I did everything but call their cat a rotten liar. Actually, I may have done that, too.

Then, I went back to awarding reviews.

Ah, look, I said mentally, with glee. A worthy a review! I shall click and click and hit Ctrl + V and check the anonymous box and click it away! La-ti-da-ti-da.

I did most of that. I clicked and clicked and hit Ctrl + V and clicked it away, anyhow.

The problem was that I had copied my rant over to Word to check my spelling (it's a habit I do with almost every little thing I type, and it's a dumb habit, because I still miss so much). Apparently, when I redid my "Ctrl + C" (which should have put the WLIDR sig and link back into my "copy" reserve), it didn't stick. So I still had my rant about this reviewer (complete with this reviewer's handle) in my "copy" reserve so that when I hit "Ctrl + V" it put that rant into the "Message" box that pops up when awarding gift points to a public review.

And I clicked happily away, only realizing what I'd done after I'd sent the thing to the reviewer. And yes, I forgot the "anonymous" box then, too.

I really am terrible at being anonymous.

Could have been worse. I could have sent the rant to the reviewer I was ranting about, but I'm afraid that would have been hilarious to me, not embarrassing---as if fate had stepped into assure someone told this person what they thought of their thoughtless reviews. I'm not mean on purpose, but when I make a slip like that, I tend to laugh about it.

'Kay, so I'm not mean; just heartless.

Could have also put the rant on the public "thank you" forum instead of the group forum, but that wouldn’t have been embarrassing because I could have just edited it afterward.

Instead, I sent this rant to some poor random good reviewer. But, at least I realized it. Still, the email I sent after that "award" was one of the most shaming and humbling apologies I've ever had to write. I really, really hate ranting at people who don't deserve it, and only realizing I've done so in hindsight. And this was the king of such instances.



Okay, so that was longer than I thought. But, also, I'd never put it in an item. So I hope it's okay---because this was the only way I was going to share it.



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