Tuesday, December 5, 2017
Being Tactful
?Facebook, the giant tool of social media, keeps many of us busy all day long. It was not long ago that people spent time on Facebook trying to reconnect with the world—people searched for others from their past and quickly brought them to their present. Nowadays, Facebook serves as a place where people market themselves or their business, while others find it as a comfort zone where they can express themselves or find sympathy. Sure enough, in no time, people learned everything about everyone—yuck.
About three months ago an acquaintance of mine posted on Facebook. As I read the post, I noticed that he made a significant spelling error. It was not an autocorrect error or a typo… It was a mistake.
ontemplated whether I should bring this to his attention. I didn’t want to hurt his feelings or embarrass him in public.
Finally, I sent him a private message, telling him he should edit his post so it would be errorless. I even went as far as to include in my message what would be the right word to use. I reread my message several times and finally pushed the button to send it.
Seconds later, my Facebook friend sent me a message, thanking me for bringing this spelling issue to his attention.
Similar to that incident, look what happened to me. Two days ago, I posted my Blog #50 late at night. As always, I included a few photos to create a more attractive blog.
The next day an acquaintance of mine posted a comment to my blog page stating, “Watch your grammar dear.” Wow, that was loud, I thought. I rushed to check my blog and noticed that one of the images I included had text in it—and it had a grammatical error. Obviously, she was right. Not only was there a grammar mistake, but also as an author, I shouldn’t post anything that doesn’t convey proper English. I kept my response to her on the lighter side as I tried to put some humor in it and also admitted guilt—“It is not my English… lol. But you are right, I shouldn’t have posted it.” I was sure that this would satisfy her, and decided not to replace the image.
The correct way: …ARE SWEET.
Surprisingly, that was not the case. The picky acquaintance had more to say. She went on and on, hanging me in public. At that point, I found it more than just loud—I thought it was rude. I replied to her post, telling her to move on, that she made her point very clear and that there was no need continue. Not only did I think she was rude, but I was also upset. What got to me the most was that juvenile game of Ping-Pong that I went through with her.
Finally, I put my emotions aside and hid the entire dialog with her so that no one else would see it.
Apparently, removing it from my page didn’t wipe it off my heart or from my memory. People are odd, I thought. Does she go around commenting on every grammatical mistake she sees on Facebook? Because that would require more hours than a full-time job.
What I truly wanted to tell her is that you don’t build yourself a hill by digging a hole for someone else.
What would you do? Would you bring it to someone’s attention in a private or public?
Michelle