Professionalism

By Web Guy on Saturday, March 20th, 2010

Some people email you out of the blue accusing you of things that are not true while being rude and condescending. One person stated that they were certain I sold their email and that I am unethical and etc etc etc

My response was short and sweet
“go ___ yourself. we don’t sell our user information.”

To which there was a response about how I am not very professional. And the thing is, how are you supposed to respond when people falsely accuse you of criminal conduct while using your services for free AND insulting you?

Is there a professional way to respond?

Does the person who gave you no benefit of the doubt, insulted you, and wasted your time somehow deserve the benefit of the doubt? If yes, why? They certainly didn’t give you any.

The way I look at business is that being short and sweet (or short and sour, in some cases) is probably one of the most professional things you can do. You only have so many hours to live and you only have so much time to service paying customers. The worst thing you could do is give someone like that the benefit of the doubt after they walked all over you, because then they might become a customer. And that type of person tends to be abusive, lazy, rude, selfish, and ignorant. Not a good customer.

If you don’t enjoy what you do then its best to stop doing it. Part of ensuring work is enjoyable is filtering out those who do not fit.

So if a person says “___ off” at hello, then, if you are concerned with professionalism, reciprocating is the best thing you can possibly do. Any other course of action simply wastes time that could be spent servicing real customers – which certainly isn’t very professional.