Friday, August 03, 2007

You May Have Your Opinion

I know most people get this, and the ones that don't probably aren't listening anyway. We were talking last night about the age of entitlement - about how someone who ignored their drink sitting on the bar at Starbucks, waited ten minutes before asking about it, and then when the barista kindly apologized and immediately offered to make a fresh drink, the customer's friend said, "They should give you a free drink for that." Here's the thing - you paid for a drink, you should get it. And sure, you paid for it with the expectation that it would arrive soonish and all that, but really if the drink was there (and even if it wasn't, things happen) what you really should get is what you paid for. If someone decides to go further on your behalf, then great, but more than that you do not deserve.
And I have been trucking along on my mystery stole, and we are now far enough that the theme has been revealed along with the final schematic, and some people don't love it. But here's the thing - you don't have to love it. But it is a mystery stole, the project was entered into it with all participants aware that they did not have all the info up front. The result was a mystery. If you weren't willing to take the plunge, then you could not participate or sign up, but hold off before you started. And I would like to add, this is a free pattern. All the work and effort into gathering this group and charting and breaking it up into chunks - that was all volunteer.
Now of course people can express their disappointment. They don't have to love the pattern. That happens to me all the time with stuff when I have the full pattern. But it is not the designer's fault (unless there are errors, and even then sometimes that's one of the other people who touched the pattern). The designer's job is to give you a pattern that works. How much you love it is up to you. If you don't love it, I'm not saying you can't say that, but this is where that whole "I" statement thing is great. You can say the pattern doesn't speak to you. It isn't to your taste. But getting mad because the pattern doesn't create what you wish it created, that's not anyone else's fault.