Living in a seemingly unforgivable world

I woke up to a barrage of posts on social media criticizing a customer service company for one honest mistake. Not the best way to begin the day especially when the organization happens to be one of your favorites. I began to dissect the situation to analyze if all the ‘hate’ on social media was really warranted – so much so that some even vowed to never use their services again. I realized that the customer had never raised a complain directly with the company representatives. Her first reaction was to head to social media and criticize them. Of course, the masses followed.

For some of us, this has become culturally acceptable and I can’t help but wonder why. Why is it all right to shame organizations/people publicly for mistakes without first giving them a chance to fix it? Social media cribs are valid if the company never fixed their mistake on being contacted. I’ve myself resorted to it; but never without first giving them a chance to fix their miss.

When we make a mistake, we expect to be forgiven and be given another chance. Why is it that we fail to hold ourselves up to the same standards? Why is it then not acceptable that the organization publicly shame us for every misstep?

What is even more important to analyze is if our organization really works this way. How do we treat mistakes? Are we forgiving yet holding the person accountable? Are we too lenient? Or do we, like my friend on social media, be brutally unforgiving?

As the year draws to an end, I hope we figure that the world is really not as unforgiving as we make it to be and more importantly, that we don’t play a role in making it that way.