dear unhappy customer
a letter to the person screaming at me in my inbox (things I wish I could say edition)
I know you’ve been conditioned through buying from enormous corporations with ever increasing profits to pounce the moment you think your rights as a consumer are being threatened.
I know that the very concept of what “your rights” are has been twisted and inflated due to the rampant hyper individualism of white supremacy. You’ve conflated discomfort with violation, and you’re ready to rage the moment you perceive any hint of inconvenience.
I know you’ve internalised the notion that “if you don’t look out for you, no one will”.
But I am a person. A single human on the receiving end of that email that you sent accusing me of misleading you, or threatening me because I didn’t reply to your inane support request within an hour.
I know that you may have forgotten that timezones exist. Or maybe your school system neglected to even teach you they do because it was so focussed inwards. But that email you sent landed in my inbox at 3am, the DM to follow it up at 3:33, and the second email to rage about my lack of response, 3:42.
I was asleep, not ignoring you, not scamming you.
And since we’re being honest here, your purchase, even if that $200 felt enormous for you, does not entitle you to 24/7 access to me. A purchase one hundred times that amount would still not entitle you to 24/7 access to me.
I also know, from so many years of customers just like you, that you would still think you were entitled to my full attention and concern the moment you demand it even if that thing had been free.
I can see you’re distressed because the excitement you felt when you purchased this thing quickly faded when for whatever reason it didn’t meet your expectations. Maybe you couldn’t access it easily (most of the time this is because you typed your own email address incorrectly at the checkout), maybe it was longer/shorter/louder/whatever than what you were hoping, maybe you purchased in a moment of joy then immediately spiralled about doing anything nice for yourself and now you’re panicking and lashing out at whoever is closest.
Whatever it is, I truly wish you could understand that I am also on your side. I want you to enjoy what you’ve bought from me. I’ve spent more hours than I even know creating it, for people just like you, in the hopes that they love it as much as I loved making it. I’ve agonised over the pricing for months, trying to find a way to balance the time, care, and energy I’ve poured into making it with it being possible for you to purchase and enjoy it. In all likelihood, I still underpriced it.
I’ve given so much care and attention to the entire process because I truly want what I sell to be meaningful, to have an impact, to fill a need for you. I sell things I care about.
I’m not a giant faceless corporation selling you cheap trash that has been designed to do nothing more than extract money from you then end up in landfill while exploiting all the humans involved along the way. I’m selling you something I’ve created, with care and intention, something I truly hoped would be a genuine exchange of value between us.
So if something is getting in the way of that, I want to work with you to overcome whatever that thing is. Which is made so much more difficult when you launch yourself into my inbox screaming at me.
I am a person. A single human on the receiving end of that email you sent. A human who probably used the profit from whatever I sold you to pay my rent and feed my children. There are no submarine excursions happening here.
I think I’m a fairly resilient person. I have worked hard to divest from the people pleasing social conditioning that most humans who aren’t cis men have received. I have learnt to recognise when someone is lashing out because they are hurting, not because I have actually hurt them. I have built a network around me of people who help keep me grounded and allow me to check in with them if I’m unsure about whether I’m being reasonable.
But after 8 years of this, the feeling of tightness in my throat, the tears prickling my eyes, and the feeling of dread that washes over my body when I open my inbox is far too familiar.
I don’t want to let these moments with you stop me from creating things to sell. Because obviously you’re not my only customer. I also receive emails from people who want to share how much they have loved what they bought, how it was the best thing they’ve ever bought like that, how they can’t wait to see what I create for them next.
I save those emails, and try to orient my mind towards those people, not you. But I truly wish some days that I could sit across from you, and ask you to actually see me. I wish you could see the impact of your words and want to do less harm.
I wish there were a way to convince you to be gentle and compassionate with yourself, so that you might move through the world wanting to extend that to others too.
I know I replied with some version of “oh, let me help you get that sorted!”, but this is what I wish I could have said.
Liss x
This is brilliant. I’m sorry I understand. And thank you.