The wussification of corporate America

I seem to be saying this a lot lately, what is WRONG with people? And what is wrong with companies? My wife tells me you can't hug at her place of work, it's a big no-no. That's not far off from forbidding shaking hands, because that *IS* physical contact you know. How about the good ol' boy pat on the back? Only in baseball (butts allowed too!). When did everyone get carpel tunnel, ADD, restless leg syndrome, acid reflex and autism? Who decided a little ass wiping was a bad thing? Not my Mama, I can tell you that!

It particularly bothers me about the businesses, the entire "that's the way it is" and "it's what's best" mentality, without hurting anyone's feelings except for the accused. What happened to doing what's right? I love the anonymous phone lines for reporting inappropriate dress or performance. Think about it. If it's THAT bad, it'll be obvious and SHOULD fix itself (if the company isn't afraid of firing or some kind of discipline, but they are). But the phone line is set up in case ONE person is offended, but it's not bad enough to publicly complain about it. I heard a story recently about a guy that had to lay off his entire department. One person sued for discrimination cause she was mexican. One of the guys I used to deal with works for a major auto manufacturer, has been reprimanded for stealing from his company, and to this day still appears to sell stolen items on eBay. The company is afraid to fire him. That makes sense.

It seems to be getting worse. I've griped about eBay, in that they're changing their feedback policy so that sellers cannot rate the buyers as anything but good. That's just wrong. PayPal, an eBay company, is doing something similar yet different. If someone has gone past the 45 days to file a claim, they can still report that to PayPal, PayPal will note it and warn you, but you have no recourse. It's like our HOA "courtesy letter violations". The PayPal thing came out of the blue for me, someone who bought something a year ago, unknown to me, never got it. The email from PayPal indicated something to the affect of "While this claim was not processed, we've noted it on your record and it has no affect on your account". What a minute!? If it doesn't, why are you telling me? Where's my trial? How many anonymous strikes to I get before it DOES make a difference.

Now, the other day, I get something from Amazon. Seems like I stepped over the line again. What did I do? I don't know!! But by golly, they're letting me know I did bad!

From Amazon.com Seller Performance Team
Subject: Notice: Policy Warning

We have received a complaint about an inappropriate email contact that originated from your email address. Please note that sending excessive email is against our policies. Please consider the privacy of Amazon.com participants to be of utmost importance and refrain from sending unsolicited or excessive email.

So what did I do? Did I send someone their tracking info and they thought it was spam? Did I Respond to an idiot that was whining about something stupid and they reported me for responding? Was it sending the guy a link to my pinball site as he bought a pinball price guide (we all know solicitation is a BIG no no). Or what? Who was it to? What was it about? When did I send it. I'll never know, you want to guess why? Because the Amazon Seller Performance Team is a send only, never respond email. When I emailed asking what I did, I got this in response:

Thank you for writing to us about the notice you recently received. Please note that this is an automated response to your message. While we cannot provide a personal reply to messages sent to this address, please be assured that you are a valued member of the Amazon.com selling community and we value your communication with us.

Accused, tried and convicted. And don't do it again, whatever it is, we're not telling you, you should know better.