Mahatma Gandhi said, “To lose patience is to lose the battle.” Having a good lawyer helps, too.
Yes, getting angry is the easy solution, and we all know adults who use temper tantrums as their solutions to most every problem. It rarely helps. Meanwhile, if we are being honest, most all of us have fell victim to anger and responded in not-so-patient ways. What brings this on?
A waitress bringing the wrong order. An airline flight being cancelled. A co-worker dinging your car door. None of those signify the end of the world, but you might think so.
Thirty years ago, when legendary Des Moines restauranteur Babe Bisignano was still alive and operating Babe’s Restaurant, he expressed to me his distaste for The Des Moines Register’s dining reviews. “They can give me all the hell they want,” he told me. “But the new guy who puts everything he owns into opening up a restaurant, whose chef called in sick that night, whose waiters didn’t show. To tear that guy and his business apart in the paper is a damn shame.”
I often credit longtime CITYVIEW food critic Jim “Food Dude” Duncan on how he handles writing reviews on new restaurants, as he purposely gives them time to make a few tweaks from their opening day before he dines there and then often makes a follow-up visit before writing. Jim reminds us that criticism doesn’t have to be mean-spirited or angry.
Unfortunately, mean-spirited and angry criticism is more pervasive today as social media has become a magnet for those who have lost their patience to sound off. My friend Darren Tromblay, who once edited our publications and who continues to write for us, calls it “Internet Hercules,” noting how much tougher people are when they are online rather than in person.
I am reminded of all this as I rejoice that our publication websites are up again. After countless efforts to get this resolved with numerous start-overs in the migration of our data to a newer and larger server, GoDaddy finally got it right. I stated the facts in a column here a few weeks ago to let our online readers who were contacting me know we were aware of the problem and attempting to get it fixed. I was tempted to tear into GoDaddy, but the simple truth is that their employees were doing their best to resolve the problem. Ultimately, we had to force the situation by stating, after three weeks of our sites being down, we would be seeking legal remedies. Within hours, the proper data was migrated, and our websites were up again.
Those are the simple facts. Patience was, and seemingly always is, important. And so was our commitment to seek legal action — patiently.
Have a terrific Tuesday, and thanks for reading.
Shane Goodman President and Publisher Big Green Umbrella Media shane@dmcityview.com 515-953-4822, ext. 305 |