Road Rage!! on the Information SuperHighway

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Road Rage!! on the Information SuperHighway
By Rick Beneteau ©2004 All Rights Reserved

I sat in the right lane at the busy intersection waiting for the light to change. A scruffy looking male driver in the left lane looked as impatient as I must have. Finally, on green, I continued down the 6 lane road. About a half block up I saw a sight that horrifies me to this day. A child, no more than 3 years old, was starting to saunter across this crazy road. Alone. Reacting instantly, I sped up and got ahead of the driver to my left, then slowed dramatically, turned and stopped my car across both lanes to block traffic. Jumping out, I snatched up this tyke just as she was about to cross the center line and into oncoming traffic. The timing could not have been closer.
The story gets better. As I was hurrying the toddler to the safety of the sidewalk I just about stumbled over her younger brother, who was starting to wheel his stroller between parked cars into the street, following his sister. Of course, he was safe as traffic was now blocked, and suddenly I felt blessed to have arrived at this critical moment. Where was mom during all this? You shouldn't have asked:-) She had apparently told her kids to wait on the sidewalk while she walked across this major thoroughfare to go into a store. The siblings were simply trying to find her. What I said to this poor-excuse-for-a-parent you don't want to know and has nothing to do with this article, but what does is that during the entire time I was making sure these children were safe (which really wasn't that long) there was a car horn blowing furiously in the background.
Guess who? Yep, the disheveled looking driver in the next lane. When I returned to my car, he made a point to open his door, stand up and scream at me at the top of his lungs (in some frenzied foreign tongue). After witnessing what had happened, he was VERY upset WITH ME because I inconvenienced him! This my friends, is referred to as road rage. I would assume that most people (and the drivers behind him) would have breathed a heavy sigh of relief that neither of these kids were hurt, or worse, killed on that road that day. But this article is not about "most people". It's about "some people" and a phenomena on the Internet that is becoming all too commonplace. And I don't like it one bit. It's what I call Road Rage on the Information SuperHighway. The majority of people I come into contact with as customers, resellers (I own 2 affiliate programs), newsletter subscribers and folks who email me with questions or advice, are simply put, wonderful folks. But since I am communicating with sheer volumes of 'netizens', I am receiving more and more blatantly angry email. I mean the kind of ugly verbiage that most people would never have the parts to say to my face. And, I'm not alone. I'm in contact with many Internet marketers and newsletter publishers who are experiencing the very same thing. Here are some recent examples, straight from my email files. Bear with me as I attempt to set these up for you. I've written, and sell through a popular affiliate program, a best-selling marketing eBook called The Ezine Marketing Machine. The ordering system is state-of-the-art (digital delivery) and extremely dummie-proof. When a customer inputs their final order information on our secure server, they receive a 'Thank You' webpage with the simple instructions on how to download their book and bonuses. It's virtually impossible to miss the simple process and get instant access to your books (I send an automated email with the same download instructions as back-up), but a small minority of customers do. I am only too pleased to quickly assist them and am online to do so from 6:00 am til 9 or 10 pm seven days a week. However, one particular customer didn't quite "get it" and fired off no less than five emails within an hour. They arrived after 11:00 p.m. when I wasn't online. I've extracted the content (verbatim) from the three I've kept: #1. "I've paid the $$$ for your program, now what about the goods? The info sounds wonderful as does your yada-yada! Why not deliver the goods now so a mere morsel like myself may possible take advantage of the material you allude to as "Gospel" for success?" #2. "Is it time to take all this stuff to the next level?? I'm prepared to do just that unless you can resolve this TONIGHT." #3. "Why is this such a hassle?? I sent my $$$ and followed your directions. Where the hell is final product?? You "Gurus" appear to be all the same. You promise the moon and deliver nothing." To top off his nastiness, he called at midnight and left a totally vile message about what a "#&@*!! thief" I was. Now, what makes this quite humorous is the fact that this unfortunately computer-unsavvy person actually had his files the entire time, but never knew he had to click to open them:-) Here's a great example of Road Rage from an actual affiliate of mine - someone who took the time to read an agreement and register to become a reseller, who upon receiving one of my very sporadic email updates, writes (and I really had no idea what his rant was about): "take me off you list i dont want to be in any of your programs wanna know why do you care well you my friend are a SPAMMERRRR!!!!! this is twice you offered me your program so i don't want it didnt want it the first time dont want it the second time get the picture. delete me from your list. do it now and dont ever send me anything again got it good" You don't even want to know what he wrote back after his removal notice was automatically sent:-) Lately, I've encountered some very ugly "flames" from subscribers to my opt-in newsletter. Some were long-term readers who woke up one morning with amnesia, suddenly unaware of the publication they subscribed to and had been receiving for months and wrote me the spam riot act, complete with expletives. A few thought it their Internet duty to report me to the "spam police". Good thing I keep subscription records:-) Ok, before you begin thinking "this Beneteau guy has probably let off some cyber-steam", well, I have. Occasionally, I've reacted out of pure emotion when someone has attacked my integrity. I am fully aware of this "trigger" in me and usually know better than to fire back when I'm hot under the collar. A few times, I've been embarrassed by my own words. Nothing vile or vulgar mind you, but an unprofessional display of anger. So yes, I've been guilty too:-) A good rule of the road: if you encounter a "brave" and rude emailee who upsets you, write your reply email right away but don't click send. This will at least let you vent and when your temperature reaches normal again remove the "emotion" from your words. As in the case above, if there is no real need to continue the dialogue, then don't even bother and simply move on (I just deleted this misguided soul). Remember, their anger is THEIR problem. When you don't react to them you will continue acting in a totally professional manner. Yes folks, it takes a thick skin to operate a business on the Internet! Here are a few questions to ponder: Is the faceless Internet the new, global venting ground? Will the whirring sound of a connecting modem actually boost testosterone levels? Does a dial-up account come with an unspoken license to spew venom? Is the Net getting nasty or what?