I was reading a very interesting article on your website regarding internet piracy today, I found it eye opening and informing. I was also very impressed to find you had an author entirely dedicated to digital age topics including video gaming. I was surprised to find such progressive and smart articles on Forbes.com, when Forbes Magazine gets a certain stigma attached to it for being only for the richest people in America, who likewise get an awful reputation for being short-sighted, conceited, selfish and the like, leading to things like our 99% vs. 1% Occupy movement and similar buzz words.
I enjoyed the article so much that I moved on to a second article. A pop-up appeared asking me to take a survey, which I could do when I was done reading, and I was gleefully looking forward to leaving positive feedback, truly enjoying my visit with such varied article topics, well-written and entertaining. I even read a third article first. Then on to the survey.
It began with some of the standards, "Is the site easy to navigate?", "Have the articles met your expectations?", et cetera. I answered honestly of course, yes, it seems clean, no, not too cluttered with ads, I don't know, I haven't actually tried to search for a particular article yet, so I can't make an informed decision about your search function...
Then the survey took a turn for the uncomfortable.
"Do you consider yourself an investor, or a financial professional?" Drop down options include "Investor", "Financial Professional", "Both", and "Neither." Well, "neither" I guess suits me.
Another subtly condescending question, "What is your occupation?" Options included "CEO", "CFO", "CIO", "COO", "Other C-Level Position" which I found considerably haughty as any of the others could have substituted for anything else I could imagine, "Director", "Manager", "Consultant", "Student", "Sales", and "Other", among others. No where in here are "Service professional", "Web developer", "Programmer", "Database Administrator", "Food-service Professional", "Factory Floor Worker", "Real Estate Broker", or any other of thousands of other occupations or even umbrella descriptions of other jobs that people have were available for options. Out of upwards of 15 options, apparently the only jobs one could fathom a reader of Forbes could have are some form of business owner, their management, or someone who sells their products. Don't bother to consider the other half of the payroll who makes any business run. Half, by population. Half or more of every company's employee roll call are the people who do the legwork who actually get stuff done. Not a single option out 15+ options in the drop down described me besides "other".
It makes me appreciate what it must be like to be a Bank of America teller. To try to defend my business on a daily basis, while people scream in my face about unnecessary fees, or being charged twice for the same mishandled charge, or having a promptly mailed bill be charged late fees. Pleading with customers face to face every day trying to convince them to stay with the bank, while we change their terms of service and their credit card interest rates, and threaten to add a surcharge to debit fees. Yeah, I'd feel a little guilty charging my client to use a service that they can't live without. I wonder what dealing with the stress of that would be like, eight long hours every day of taking the heat from dissatisfied clients, who are angry about policies my employer made, nothing that I had a hand in deciding, nothing my manager, or their regional manager, or their manager's manager decided, yet I have to deal with the backlash. Just a couple of millionaires in suits making those policies, most of whom I couldn't even name, because I'm just a teller, and what I do isn't appreciated by this company. That's okay, at least I'm being paid barely above minimum wage at the end of the week, it's so worth it to be yelled at all day, being responsible for decisions I didn't make that made other people billions of dollars, while I go home after a stressful week and figure out if I have enough to pay the rent and the electric bill this week. I might think about dropping my cell phone or cable bill, except that without internet and phone access, I can't keep my job or look for better ones, or keep going to school, they're necessary to stay afloat. Gas, which is constantly rising, is also another 15% of my income, but it's something I can't avoid because I will lose this precious Bank of America teller job if I can't drive to work. It's too bad I have to deal with the constant influx of absolutely pissed customers, rightly pissed about what's happened to them. Maybe I should transfer to phone customer service in the call center, at least they don't feel the spit from angry customers in their faces. I also know they aren't paid any better, in fact probably less, and face the same basic needs fulfilling challenges that I am. I'd really like to afford a glass of whiskey to forget about this stress for a day, but I can't afford it. I know for certain that our executive staff is forgetting about the stress they have to deal with off at some yacht party. I'm really glad they are held accountable for the business decisions they made.
In real life, I personally like my job. It isn't glamorous, but I take pride in what I do. I like to think I contribute to my lower mid-size company's success. But according to Forbes, there are 15 other top-level positions that I ought to have, should I be considered a worthy reader, or I could be one of two slave positions: "Salesperson", or "Other." Thanks. I should point out that these translate to me as "Someone who brings us more money" or "Who are you, again?" Really makes me feel appreciated as a customer reading Forbes. Now I know why I don't come here. Yet the insults continue.
"How much do you have in liquid assets?" I laughed before I could even look at the options. Sure enough, the minimum option is "Under $250,000". I'm sorry that, again, out of about 10 or 15 brackets shown, my liquid assets don't add up to your minimum recognized. I hate to deliver this reality check so sharply, and stop me if you've heard this one, but I believe that 99% of our country doesn't make $250,000 GROSS income in a year, let alone has it lying around in liquid assets. Those numbers ought to ring a lot of bells, I believe Obama wanted to have some tax reform that only affected people making more than $250,000 a year, which would have only affected 1% of the American population, it's now becoming all too apparent to me that these numbers weren't just pulled out of the blue as convenient, memorable numbers. No, it's apparently the entry fee to be recognized as a customer at something like Forbes.com, glad I don't subscribe to your magazine, what is the subscription fee? A paltry $1200 a year? Maybe some of my math is off, you can have your "financial experts" correct me by another 1% if it's actually the 98% of us who don't even make that much in a year, gross income, before mortgage, food, transportation, et cetera. But it might be worth it to recognize that every click through to your site is a click through to your site, whether I'm wearing a three-piece suit or a hoodie.
My favorite part of the survey was the last line, that if I entered my email address I would be entered to win a weekly drawing for $500 or something. Yeah, I threw my email in that pot. You know why? Because for someone in the 99% like me, that $500 matters. But for any other "qualified", "average" reader of your site, they might not notice that figure, they might find that stuck to the bottom of their shoe walking around their office bathroom. You may as well have a drawing for free lollipops. After all, there's a sucker born every minute.
There's something to be said about catering to a target audience. I've done marketing, I get it. I understand that that's your image as Forbes Magazine, to cater to the richest of Americans, that's cool. But I have half a mind to write your author and tell him he deserves to write for a better website, because the link a friend sent me to his article was very misleading. It lead me to a place where I clearly wasn't wanted. You're welcome, by the way, for receiving the opportunity to click on a banner ad that I gave you. Glad I never bothered to. The next time I see a link to an interesting article on Forbes.com, I'll kindly ask around for a link to the same article cross-posted elsewhere, if possible. Or a copy paste. Because you don't deserve my traffic, you conceited, greedy dogs. This is a prime example of how completely separated from reality the 1% is, and as an advertiser myself I despise dropping buzzwords, but you are doing nothing but proving this sensationalized concept true. In fact now I wonder if it could possibly be sensationalized enough.
I don't expect a reply to this email, besides the inevitable automated one. I don't expect this to be posted as feedback to your site open to commentary. I expect you and the rest of the wealthy to march on and continue to fund politicians who will see to it that voices like mine don't get heard. You know, the voices that sound awfully similar to the people working your reception desk, cleaning your bathrooms, and delivering your packages. I hope you expect to see this email copy pasted into a Facebook or G+ link somewhere. For all the hacks in the marketing industry touting their social marketing strategies, let me tell you something: Messages travel farther and wider when the content means something. Your survey has definitely meant something and I hope it goes viral.
Sincerely,
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