In all the years I’ve been helping people over the Internet, and that’s quite a few years.. longer than I’ve had my website in fact, I’ve often received little or no thanks from individuals. You know how it is, the stereotypical martyr act sort of thing ;) I only say it because it’s true though, anyone who spends their time helping others will say exactly the same. Woe, it’s a thankless task! :p
So anyway, imagine my surprise to wake up this morning, log on and check my e-mail to find that not only has Jessica of swimchick.net publicly accepted my Pants Award given to her last year, but she has left a sincere and appreciative message along with it. Not just a hidden away ‘thanks jem’, but a few paragraphs dedicated to the task. I think it takes a LOT of balls (well, guts in this case) to do that.
I have to say, that’s a nice way to start the day :)
06 Dec at 5:42 pm
I agree – that definitely does take a lot of guts. It’s also a sign that she’s a more mature person; it takes a humble attitude to publicly accept something that points out all your flaws, mistakes and shortcomings. So really, good for Jessica! Also – don’t you just love the warm fuzzy feeling you get from receiving a sincere thanks? For me, one thanks in ten favors makes it all “worth it”. :)
06 Dec at 5:43 pm
It could be one in a hundred if they’re as nice as Jessica’s, heh :)
06 Dec at 5:52 pm
I definitely agree, and I find the same problems with art sites when you’re critting people. They might seriously need your help and you’ll pour yourself into a good critique only to have no response or actually have them getting mad at you with an “I’m sorry you didn’t like it”. Which is funny, because its not that you didn’t like what they were doing its that they put their art on a website that promotes critiques so you gave them one to try and help make the piece better but all they wanted was a place online to store their crappy pictures that will never get any better! < /rant>
06 Dec at 6:06 pm
Wow, way to step up on her part. I’m impressed. (And hey look, brushwank down in the comments. Bonus- swimchick acts classy and someone else brings the wank anyway.)
06 Dec at 6:13 pm
I find it funny that she suddenly makes the entry a year later or whatever :P Are you sure she isn’t just using you for hits? She does mention not getting as many on her latest entry. It seems rather fishy to me. Plus, she could have always emailed you… I don’t understand why she’d find it necessary to post a comment on your previous entry – especially since it did not hold ANY relevance to the entry at all. But maybe I’m just a cynic though and through..
06 Dec at 6:19 pm
Call my cynical, but I’m right with Matt. Sure it’s never too late, but I mean.. a year later? What’s the point of talking about it a year later? It’s over and done with, get over it. Ya’know?
06 Dec at 6:22 pm
Jessica’s site really is a great site specially for resources but I have to agree with Matt a little, since it has took her a long time to finally admit that your site review was right. I also do think she is doing it slightly for the hits aswell. But all in all she is a nice person who finally plucked up the courage to accept the pants award. Your site will always be one of my top favs though Jem even better than swimchick (H) p.s. I think you should make some more pants reviews.
06 Dec at 6:29 pm
How do you figure? I already thanked her on her own website, nobody knew I was going to post this entry. Hell, I didn’t even plan on writing it at first. As did I, a couple of entries ago. This could all be a big conspiracy for us both to get hits! :o She did. We’ve had several emails back and forth since October.
06 Dec at 6:55 pm
Good for her, It can’t have been easy to do that.
06 Dec at 7:08 pm
So why comment with an unrelated/off-topic comment that has no relevance to the actual entry? :P Obviously there were no gurantees… but I think she knew when she posted the comment that *something* would come out of it… whether it be a few hits from the comment itself or whatever. It’s great that you believe her and all and I’m not trying to put a dampner on anything. It’s just I don’t see why she’s suddenly – afterall this time – seen the light. Or why she decided to post the comment on your last entry! But that’s just me.
06 Dec at 7:54 pm
Fair enough, That was very nice! Now was that a hint or…..
06 Dec at 8:14 pm
Matt, if everyone that leaves unrelated comments on my blog was guilty of something, well… that’s a lot of guilty readers! Why do you think I haven’t “rehomed” all of the comments I broke yet? I’ve got a whole CRAPLOAD of unrelated comments. And, for the record, as my Pants Award has been sitting 2nd in Google for over 12 months and I get around 150+ hits a month for people searching for “swimchick” (not to mention the 50ish from today) if anyone is up on this transaction of niceties, it’s me. (1850 in versus 49 out? I think that says it all, don’t you?) Of course, this is all irrelevant, because it’s my website and I’ll link to who I bloody well please.
06 Dec at 8:14 pm
Jessica may want more hits but she’s not going to waste her time like that just to get her more? She’s genuine in her thank you, and it’s funny because Jordan… no one cares about your opinion. You only said that because you ~think~ she ripped your bushes, and if they weren’t on her website you wouldn’t of bothered posting that. It’s ironic, because you’re the biggest thief that I know of at the moment on the net (or at least you were earlier this year).
06 Dec at 8:36 pm
@Sean: Different Jordan ;) How awesome! I knew she’d gotten over the grudge but this was a bit unexpected. Kudos to her. Oh, and I’ll toss in my thanks – TT has been a great help and took me away from absolutely positioned div layouts! That actually happened due to the Pants Award, since I wouldn’t have found your site without Jess blogging about it. Heck, I wouldn’t have been introduced to this whole ‘web circle’ without it!
06 Dec at 8:55 pm
Good on Jessica :).
06 Dec at 8:57 pm
Are you calling Jordan from atourworst.org a thief, Sean? I think you have the Jordan’s mixed up. Jessica’s site isn’t working for me :(
06 Dec at 8:59 pm
I think you’re all being cynical, plain and simple! I don’t think that there was any need for her to do a public thank you (especially if the pair had been conversing by email). It does seem very genuine. If that is the case, good for her! Plus the “I’ll accept your Pants Award” made me really laugh out loud. It’s a nice way to end the “saga” (if you could call it that) that seemed to revolve around her visitors rather than herself, from what I can gather. Either way, it was a nice thing to do. I love the ‘rewarding of good deeds’. It honestly makes me feel warm and fuzzy watching other people do them, let alone myself. :P
06 Dec at 9:02 pm
Jem… I think you got slightly defensive there for no reason ;)
06 Dec at 9:10 pm
Heh yup I read about you on Jess’s site! ^^ Lucky you ;] Nice site by the way [:
06 Dec at 10:40 pm
;P http://tinyurl.com/3booe9
07 Dec at 12:50 am
I think that’s pretty of her to do that. Good on her.
07 Dec at 1:24 am
Totally mixed up the Jordan’s. Whoops!
07 Dec at 1:31 am
@Sean – Uhm, yeah you do realize that I’m not who you think I am. Look at the URL next time.
07 Dec at 2:37 am
Sometimes I thank people for asking me for help :P
07 Dec at 4:02 am
I’m sorry for those who think I used the blog as a way to get more traffic, but that was not my intention. I had been emailing Jem for help for quite some time now (I’ve always thanked her in my emails, too) and I finally thought it was time for me to thank her. I just thought it would be better to publicly display a thanks, because I think she deserved to be recognized by my visitors and everyone else for the things she’s helped me out with. People would also see that I’m not afraid to admit or accept my faults in the award she gave me. Why NOT publicly thank her? There’s nothing wrong with it. Yes, it’s been a year. But it took me a year to realize, accept it, and change. But you’re welcome Jem. I’m sorry you don’t get the credit/thanks you deserve sometimes, but just know that you do help some, whether they want to admit it or not. You rescued me from Iframes. Wooo! Oh and HII JEMS MOM IF YOU’RE WATCHING :D (haha this is going to look awkward but it’s really not what it looks like!)
07 Dec at 8:15 am
Good girl! I’ll be honest, if you slagged me off, I’d probably publically slag you off back :)
07 Dec at 10:16 am
LOL @ me. :p
07 Dec at 11:51 am
Helping others is generally a highly thankless task. So if Jessica really means it, well that’s great. Even if she’s one in a hundred like you said. This reminds me of how I used to do my classmates homework (essays especially) in German. I’d write about 15 different essays on the same subject twice a week… for free. And I liked helping them, but if hardly anyone ever acknowledged it outside the class. So good for Jessica. Sorry about yesterday – I was tired and snippy :P
07 Dec at 12:41 pm
And if you read above my post above your post you’ll realize I made that mistake and realized it…
07 Dec at 1:44 pm
You’ve helped me a ton, that I know! That was really big of her :3 very cool.
07 Dec at 2:29 pm
i swear, people are just so cynical. are we trying to start some wank here or something? ’cause I could go all in, but I really doubt that was the intention. Good for Jessica for stepping up and take the criticism the way it was intended. Jem’s bark is much worse than her bite… more than willing to help pick up the pieces of your website once she ripped it to shreds ;) Haha.
07 Dec at 4:35 pm
That’s great she took it so well.
07 Dec at 6:27 pm
All I can say is good on Jessica :)
07 Dec at 6:41 pm
@ Sean – The wonders of using tabs and surfing the net means you leave websites open for long periods of time. Either way just consider it a reinforcement.
08 Dec at 12:18 am
All I can say is well done Jessica. That took a lot of courage and maturity. I congraulation you.
08 Dec at 3:29 am
Wow. A “thank you” from Jessica. Christmas miracle.
10 Dec at 6:55 am
I would like to suggest that “ovaries” are the female equivalent of “balls.”
10 Dec at 8:50 pm
Yup. Her doing that really shows that she is open minded enough to consider that you mayn’t have been creating pants awards for the sake of it. Even though you never gave my site a pants award, reading the awards make me realise all of the mistakes I’ve made when it comes to web design. For example, I used to use foto decadent on LJ as a resource for images for “my” graphics, and used to leave credit to foto decadent. I was completely ignorant to the fact that foto decadent deserves no credit, as they don’t own copyright to any images, and many people posting would probably not have taken the time to find out and inform everyone. However, as a LOT of people were doing it, I thought it was okay. When I read your pants awards, I realised that it definitely isn’t okay. It’s sad that a lot of photographers don’t get credit for their art, but others do, just ’cause they added some colour and used a few brushes (that they probably got from other sites, too). That’s about all. :p