Perhaps some of you have heard about the TweetSG saga. For those who have not, it’s been written at length by both Daryl and daphnemaia, who focus on the online reputation aspect of the debacle, as well as by the developer himself.
As for me, I don’t wish to rehash the conversation between me and the developer, but it did leave me thinking about the need to be nice.
Personally for me it’s important to be a nice person, and to keep a good account of myself. I don’t remember my parents actually teaching me this, but somehow it’s just something I’ve always believed in.
Growing up, I met some people who could best be described as naughty, but never “not nice” or just plain rude. But as soon as I left what I call the formative years and started university and mixing around with people from different backgrounds, it became clear to me, somewhat shockingly, that there are just people who are plain not nice.
Having grown up believing that we should be nice to one another, I struggle with this fact even now.
On one hand, there’s a part of me that thinks that there’s a higher power or some kinda karma that will come back to haunt people like this. So if I ever came across somewhat who I considered to be rather nasty, I’d usually stay far far away from them, mind my own business and hope that I never have to deal with them ever again.
On the other hand, there are people to whom being nasty is like their way of surviving this world. These are the people that, if you ever cry foul on them for acting badly, will say “That’s not my problem” or “Nobody owes you a living”. And the funny thing is that they are completely capable individuals who treat their own friends nicely, but they just don’t feel the need to be nice to everybody.
Of course, I know that it doesn’t pay to be nice to everyone all the time. Sure, in an ideal world it’d be nice, but you don’t want to be taken advantage of and sometimes you need to assert yourself in order to get what you want.
So as you can see, this issue plagues me a little.
I still personally believe that we should be nice to the people we interact with. And I rather not deal with people that are not nice to me, even if it’s not personal and that’s just the way they operate.
So how? Nice or not nice?
Btw, I use sgBEAT now to tweet from my mobile phone. So far so good. But now that I’ve been burnt, I’ve tempered my expectations a little.
Think, thought, thunk. 