Miramichi — These days, people love to assign ratings to people, movies, books, hotels, cars: everything. And thanks to advances in social media, any business with a Facebook page is now open to public scrutiny and reviews, and that’s got a lot of whiny little weenies very excited.
“It’s so cool that if I have a subjectively bad experience, I can immediately let everyone know about it and help run that business into the ground!” exclaimed little wiener Marc Glenn, who last week took the time to share about his unsavoury trip to Jim’s Bait & Tackle in Miramichi on the small business’s Facebook page. Glenn, however, claims he inexplicably felt no better when he clicked “post.”
“I gave it one out of five stars — I think that’s the lowest you can go — and wrote out my reasoning as to why no one should ever visit this little hellhole,” said the attention-hungry wet blanket. “First off, I went in, and the person at the counter said hello, but didn’t deign to introduce himself. Uh, excuse me, paying customer here?!
“I thought venting on their public page would sort of purge the bad feeling from the pit of my stomach, but it didn’t. Maybe my next review will take care of it.”
The Manatee found the review, which went into great detail about each stage of the interaction.
“The staff here clearly have no proficiency in public relations. The man at the counter, whom I presume is ‘Jim’ from his nametag, seemed not to listen to anything I said. He did indicate that he was extremely hard of hearing, but then why would they have him working with the public in the first place?! Highly unprofessional,” wrote the worthless little complainer, who was visiting from Connecticut and makes more in a month than the tackle shop does in a year.
“I asked for organic worms, and this supposed fisherman had no idea what organic worms even are. I expect better treatment, even if we are in a hick town in nowhere, New Brunswick. I don’t care if you’re a mom-and-pop shop — if you own a business, you need to maintain a certain standard of service. Unacceptable.”
Our reporter spoke with 89-year-old Jim Hanson, who said his great-grandfather owned the bait and tackle shop; it’s been passed down in the family for generations.
“I hate to see this kind of thing destroy our livelihood, but what can I do? These Internet people feel like if they have the power to bring us down, then they’re in control of their lives,” said a dejected Hanson, who, with help from his granddaughter, made the Facebook page a month ago, feeling he had to “get with the times.”
“Since the rating went up, our business has been way down. Now if I could only figure out how to remove it, we might have a chance at survival.”
Glenn said since Facebook made it possible, he now reviews almost every single business with a professional page.
“But I tend to only talk about my bad experiences,” said the griping little fusspot. “Because I expect things to go well — if they don’t, that’s when people need to be made aware. I just hope that this unpleasant feeling in my gut goes away after I rate enough places.”