Okay, yesterday I got an email from someone who apparently preferred to remain nameless — since he/she/it suspiciously self-identified only as “support” — announcing that the “service” I apparently get from them will be “down” on Sunday.
What service?
Exactly.
The subject header warned vaguely:
We will be offline on Sunday, July 27, 3:00-5:00 a.m. EST
The message was signed “The team” and referred in the most general terms to things like accounts and performance and such.
In fact, it was so deliciously anonymous (the bot knew my name, of course, but aside from that, nothing) that I actually had to stop working and take a laughing break.
My first thought was to send this masterpiece of ineffectiveness straight to my assistant. You know, just on the off-chance that it wasn’t ironic spam, but an actual “service message” from a real, live company.
What kind of company? Who knows. Maybe one trying to win one of those coveted “most clueless ever” awards …
It’s possible. Stranger things have happened.
But then my inner detective got the better of me and I had to find out who this email was from. Greatest marketing ploy of all time? Uh, no. But if you want to play, here’s the message:
The mysterious message
Hi Havi,
On Sunday, July 27th, between 3:00 a.m. and 5:00 a.m. EST we will be performing upgrades to our application servers.This upgrade will result in an improvement to our online performance and security features.
During this time our application will unavailable. This maintenance will not affect any of your account information and afterwards you will be able to log in and continue normal operation.
Thanks for your patience as we strive to improve our service.
– The team
If you have any questions regarding this email or would like to learn more about our products or services, please contact us toll-free at 1-888-###-#### or at support@emcssl.com.
A clew! Let us look for one.
Pretty great, huh?
Oh, the vagueness! Oh, the unintentional obfuscation! Oh the anonymous reassurances! So, so funny.
Yes, I would love to know more about your products and services. Because anonymous marketing is marketing that works. (Quick! Someone trademark that …)
Alright, enough with the sarcasm. Let’s unpack this baby. There are at least two things we can learn from the clues:
Clue #1: It’s an online service. This is good, because I don’t really use offline services.
Clue #2: They have an email address! Which has a domain name! Which is an acronym! Which I’m not familiar with!
Sadly, this is exactly the point where I got bored of the detective game and started wishing for a handy deciphering device. But who needs a code cracking department when the Google Gods are out there, right? Right.
I was hoping our mystery acronym would turn out to be something awesomely horrible. Something like:
Blahcorp, Incorporated. Offering Services and Serving Offers Since 2007.
Turns out it’s not. No, the mysterious email came from my very own shopping cart program. One which, while marginally less sucky than others I’ve worked with, is still consistently fist-shakingly annoying.
Let’s hear it for 1ShoppingCart.com: no longer just irritatingly counter-intuitive, but now the sender of Mystery Messages.
Let’s learn some stuff, shall we?
So yeah, I’m making fun of them. But actually there’s some good self-learning in this for me, and maybe some of you as well.
Because cluelessness is, of course, oh so delightful and amusing in others and uh, somewhat less so in ourselves. Such is the tragic — but still funny — nature of Schadenfreude.
My take on this is as follows:
You’re allowed (and maybe even required) to laugh at people (or big faceless companies) for being clueless shmegeggies*.
But then it’s time to go look in the mirror and apply what you’ve learned to your own life and work.
* Yiddishism, sorry. If you’re Naomi-my-Internet-crush you’d probably say something like asshat. Otherwise, nincompoop will do in a pinch.
Ooh! I have an example.
If you were hanging out on the blog this week, you probably noticed the vocal discussion on my attempts to process, and then apply/tweak/alter the advice given to me by the capable Men With Pens.
Good advice for which I paid the embarrassingly small sum of $30 and thanks to which I am in an advanced state of hardcore thinking and doing.
Anyway, one of the themes of said discussion is: “Do people really know who you are and what you do?”
And I’m sorry to say that the answer to this question is pretty much always going to be this:
Probably not.
In fact, it’s probably best to always and automatically assume that people don’t know what you offer, and just work from there.
This is something I’m trying to implement too. Give me time.
And here’s the take-away.
1ShoppingCart.com‘s clueless email message was absurd, yes, but you could also say it doesn’t really count as a FAIL moment — it did, after all, actually elicit interest and curiosity on my part.
Whereas I usually only think about them with the sincere hope that someone else will do what they’re trying to do, but in a more mensch-like way, and that this someone will run them into the ground. Metaphorically, of course.
But none of that is the important part. The important part is that it’s your job (and mine) to help your people know who you are and how you can help them.
Not just so these people you care about don’t shake their heads in confusion, but so they can get the help and support they need. Because that’s why we’re here, right?
So yeah, people not being able to figure out what you’re talking about: a problem. You assuming everyone knows what’s up: a problem.
Luckily, figuring out how you can help people get it doesn’t have to happen in a second. It’s an ongoing process.
Some of it is just paying attention and remembering to have your name and the name of your service in an email message. Some of it is asking the people who love what you do to help explain why it’s so great. Some of it is asking complete strangers to undergo some usability testing.
And in case you’re wondering …
In the meantime, if you don’t know what I do: I help people rewrite their patterns and habits so they can get more done, put themselves out there and feel great about it.
In my coaching practice the people I work with are smart, creative independent professionals (or people who want to be independent professionals).
On the blog, it’s pretty much anyone interested in self-work, self-help, general life-hackery, or in biggifying themselves in a conscious, intelligent way.
Fellow duck-fetishists are always welcome.
If you’re still unclear, read my About me page, because it’s the best About me page ever written. Or, better yet, read the About you page, because it’s about you.
And if it’s not you, then you should be somewhere else (and maybe I can make a useful recommendation about places that could be helpful for you).
Okay, that’s me. Now what about you?
If you know what you do, but you’re not sure you can get the point across succinctly and thoroughly, it’s okay. Or if you think you’re doing it right and people still don’t always get it, that’s also okay.
The important thing is that you’re in the process.
You’re working on your stuff. You’re working on being true to yourself. You’re working on ways to make it easier for the right people — the ones who need you — to feel safe and secure showing up to get what they need.
You work on it over time. At the very least you learn lots of interesting stuff about yourself. But what’s really going to happen is that you’ll get better at it.
Because you’re on the way, and because that’s just how it works. Thank goodness.
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