Monday, November 12, 2007

postal scrotum: another satisfied customer

Lisa Bellamy writes in to tell me she's not writing in.

Hello Kevin,

Hmmmm. Your friend Xxxxxx sent me your survey link.

I wanted to help but your website rather puts me off: girlie photo complete with nipples, boasts about "fartological" humor, no obvious survey link to click to send the email to, no form to fill out and -no stated objective for your research other than to help you with your mullings.

You've commented "I'm under the impression that some people actually fear talking about their work conditions. I have no idea why, but for some people, simply answering the questions I posed is a little too much to handle."

Well. 1) I don't think you've made it technically easy enough to answer the questions. 2) You've provided little motivation to. (ie What's the data for and where are you going report the data?) 3) Insulting people who are considering answering isn't going to help.

So, for now it's a pass. I'll keep an open mind and respond if you set up a well thought out, transparent, secure, properly designed etc survey that's on a professonal looking page ie nipple and boysy humor free. I promise: I'll make the effort and get out all my old contracts, sift through all the conditions, correlate your questions to the contract stipulations, cross reference my pay checks and spend my precious time to give you 4 unis worth of honest data.

Lisa

Lisa seems quite smart, so I'm sure she saw the email policy clearly mentioned on my sidebar-- the one permitting me to deal with emails as I see fit. Smile: you're on candid camera!

To address some of Lisa's points:

1) I don't think you've made it technically easy enough to answer the questions.

I have no idea what this means. Typing isn't easy?

2) You've provided little motivation to. (ie What's the data for and where are you going report the data?)

Answer or not-- the choice is yours. It's not up to me to motivate anyone. Motivation is something you bring to the table. Over six billion people have not answered my questions. I'm not losing any sleep over them.

3) Insulting people who are considering answering isn't going to help.

If you're not a fearful person, then whatever remarks I've made about chickenshit commenters won't apply to you or to anyone else who isn't chickenshit. Only the insecure see personal insults where there are none. Surely you're not one of those people.

In the meantime, thank you for making the effort to tell me you'd rather not make the effort to answer my questions. I'm sorry, but I won't be moving mountains just to satisfy your raft of preconditions (essentially: make another website). Ask yourself, in the meantime, why others seemed willing and able simply to answer the questions, which are themselves fairly straightforward.

I couldn't help but notice the word "secure" in your email. Why the need for privacy, Lisa? What's to hide? Ah, well-- no need to tell me that you won't be telling me. I gotcha.


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