I don’t know when etiquette went out of style, but I’m on a mission to bring it back.

It’s just a much more pleasant world when people use words like, ‘please’, ‘thank you’ and ‘excuse me’ and there’s really nothing that makes you feel better than helping someone else.  So why are so many people so adamant about avoiding these things? We live in a fast paced world, and the excuse a lot of people use is that they’re too busy for manners.  Really?  Just how long does it take to say excuse me, instead of just barreling through? How long does it take to smile at the person walking up the street, to help the person who has dropped their packages, to lend a hand to someone who’s in trouble?  Not very long at all. So what is the problem?

For example:
Just the other day, I got a phone call from a man I’d never met, telling me that he was trying to renew his domain name, but that his registrar wouldn’t let him and that the domain registry was in my name. I asked the domain name and as soon as he told me, I knew what had happened.  The person who originally purchased that domain name, was a hosting client of mine from a long time ago and this was one of the domains she had designed and hosted with my service.  She stopped working for them a long time ago and this man had no idea who she was, didn’t recognize her name at all.  Apparently, they’d just been renewing the domain name, year after year and this year forgot all about it.  You see, I had set up a separate account for her domain names with the registrar – she didn’t really understand how it worked, so she put their credit card on file, with my contact name and email address and year after year they would just renew it.  Except that this year, they didn’t get to it in time and it expired.  So he calls me in a panic, because it’s not redirecting to his domain name and he can no longer access email for the organization and expects that I should fix it.  I agreed to help and it was all very friendly.  I told him not to worry, that I would do everything that I could, took his number and told him I’d call him back when I knew anything.

I logged into my account, which was a bit difficult, since I got rid of that email address a million years ago and it’s now directing the gazillion pieces of spam it got every day into the “:blackhole”.  I made a couple of guesses as to the password and lo and behold, I got lucky.   Since his domain was the only one connected to this account (I haven’t used that registrar in at least 7 years), I removed all of my personal information from it, changed the password and then called him back and gave him instructions for logging in and paying to renew his domain and get it functioning again.  All in all it was about an hour from start to finish.  We said goodbye and I told him if he had any problems figuring it out, not to hesitate to call me.  He was very nice, but he never said thank you.  The next day, I checked his website and there it was, up and running and functioning and I assume his email was too, but I don’t really know for sure, cause he never called back, or sent me a note, or anything like that.  I think it’s safe to assume it’s working because, rest assured, if it weren’t, he damn sure would have called then.  I’m not asking for him to fall all over himself, singing my praises, but a thank you would have been really nice.   You know what the kicker is?  The organization is a church.

I choose however, not to let this color how I treat people.  I’ll always look for the silver lining, the good side and I will continue to help where I can, if for no other reason than I like the way it feels to be helpful.

Oh and the original designer?  I asked her, finally a year ago, to find an alternative host after about 6 bounced checks that she never made good on.

It is OK to use my photos or content provided a link back and proper crediting is given