I swear I’m getting classically conditioned to feel rage every time I hear smooth jazz. Seriously. The only time I ever listen to smooth jazz is when I’m on hold with a poorly run company that’s making me wait while they figure out why they screwed up.
Wednesday morning I was on hold with HostGator, my old host. They let my domain name ChurchStageDesignIdeas.com expire. Even though I set it to auto-renew and verified this five times before the expiration date, their system screwed up. So for the next thirty minutes they tried to figure out what was wrong while keeping me on hold. Pure rage.
I actually missed out on over 10,000 page views on Wednesday because of their screwup. That’s a big deal.
But while there’s still residual anger in my rage cage, I haven’t let it ruin my week. If this were a problem that persisted and caused permanent damage, that would be different. I’d be knocking on their doors in Austin, TX and ready to whip some butts.
Fortunately, the traffic will come back. It was one small day. In the short term, it’s cause for panic and for outrage. But in the long run, it’s not worth losing my peace.
I’ve had to shift my perspective like this multiple times in the last year or so. Many times with HostGator. One time when I got fired from Echo Conference. A couple of times when an advertiser decided not to pay me for the ad spot they reserved.
We all experience stuff like this. But we can’t afford to let it rob us of our peace. We can’t let it ruin our weeks. It’s a short term problem. Remember the big picture and move along.
Everything will be okay.
