Giving Soulfood #3

Respect people’s feelings! Even if it doesn’t mean anything to you, it could mean everything to them!

Roy T. Bennett

Hey guys!

If I’m gonna be honest, this quote has always been something I held close to my heart. In these recent months of putting myself out there online, interacting with strangers using a public account and an online identity, it’s something that resonated with me so much more.

I’ve dealt with so many people in the past few months, and I have to say it’s a very heartwarming feeling when you get a student who really appreciates what we do. When they approach us in a polite manner and express gratitude right before we end the conversation, it really warms my heart and as a human being with emotions, it makes me so much more willing to handle his case with enthusiasm when he returns the next time.

Vice versa, I’ve also seen people who aren’t so appreciative of what we do. I’ve seen all sorts of people, from those who ask if I can delete my personal things off Google Drive to make space to upload things for them, to people who ask for priority treatment when they approach us with questions. There are all sorts of people out there and in doing what I do, I havent met them all, but I’ve come across so many.

I’d hate for this space to be all emo and sad, but I have to confess. Dealing with things like these really drains me and I’m getting social media fatigue.

All I’m really asking, is for everyone to treat everyone with a little respect even online, especially online. Especially in my line of ‘work’, students aren’t paying me or my specialists a single cent, the specialists are all volunteers who take time and effort to help because they want to give back. When I asked these people for help, they agreed so readily, but they certainly didn’t sign up to be disrespected. In fact, my team and I try so hard to shield the specialists from things like that, but what is the end result? We are the ones getting tired, getting upset. I love what I do, we love what we do, but can we possibly just try to make the community a more welcoming one?

I guess, sometimes we get so carried away with talking about the big issues, issues like showing respect for our cleaners, our frontline workers etc, which are things I completely support by the way, but we forget about the little things. What happened to just starting small and showing respect to the people around us, people we interact with online? We tend to be so much more respectful people in real life, but why do we sometimes forget that when we go online and are behind a screen?

I guess, to wrap up, many people have said it and I’m gonna echo it, can we make the online community a nicer and more respectful one?