Have you ever been personally Yelped? I have.
Let me tell you how it feels: not great.
I know I’m supposed to be way more on top of Milagro’s “web reputation” than this, but last week I was poking around our search results and realized we had more Yelp reviews than before. So I clicked. And there it was.
Oh, hell.
The best part? All those near, dear, and close to my heart had already seen it. And didn’t mention it because they figured I already had, too.
Smitty: “Oh yeah, I saw it and thought ‘yep, that sounds like Ash'”.
So there you have it.
The first thing I did was apologize to Joann. (Also? Let’s hear it for Joann’s amazing facial skills that kept this gal coming back, even after enduring the wrath of Ash.)
You know how some people have resting bitch face? I have resting bitch personality. It’s my baseline default. In fact, I’ve written about it before. Being a calm, gentle, gracious member of society is WORK for me. I’m not completely certain why this is, but I’m self-aware enough to own it and be public (obviously, here) with the struggle.
The most ironic (or most appropriate, depending on how you look at it) thing is how often someone tells me Milagro makes them a nicer person. From the mouth of Milagran Becky (hi, Becky!):
“Coming to Milagro helps me catch my breath, and dare I say it, be a nicer person. It helps me smile at the annoying person at the grocery store. People who come to Milagro don’t have road rage. They don’t kick their dogs. Milagro helps us be kinder.”
Cobbler’s children and no shoes and all of that, right?
So maybe a good excuse is that if I can’t be nice, at least I’m making other people nicer? Or maybe there is no good excuse except that I’m a fully flawed human who feels and reacts and tries to manage and ends up having to ask forgiveness a lot.
And maybe my willingness to share the crappy parts of me with you here will allow you to fully own the things you’ve got going on (please tell me you have things going on) since I know for crap sure we can’t improve what we won’t admit.
I’ve learned that seeing all the best, most share-worthy parts of people doesn’t inspire me. Instead, it makes me feel less than (Joy. Comparison. Thief. Yup.) And when I hear, “you’re never gonna believe what I said/did/yelled/thought-but-thankfully-didn’t-say-out-loud”, I immediately shriek, “me, too!” and then we get to talk about how to be better.
If there’s any chance you need some pointers in putting your foot in your mouth, big-fat-gulp swallowing your pride, and/or apologizing profusely, I have plenty of experience.