Do you Freecycle? I hope so. If you don't know what it is, look it up and consider joining. It's fabulous! Get rid of the stuff you no longer need or want and get other people's stuff that you do. Although there are hard and fast rules to Freecycling, there is plenty left up to the individual and some of my fellow free cyclers' way of doing things can be irksome. (Anytime I hear/read/use any form of "irk" I hear the line from Bolt - "You irk me, professor. I am irked." hehehe)
Freecyclers decide who will get their items in different ways: to the very 1st person who asks; to the person who can pick it up soonest; only to a person who offers frequently themselves; or to the person with the best story. I understand and have done all of these, myself. But my pet peeve involves those Freecyclers who do not posting their "TAKEN" message soon enough.
I understand that "no shows" occur and you want to have backups. But once you get a few or several responses throughout the day you post an item, chances are at least one of those fellow Freecyclers is going to come get your stuff. So please post a "TAKEN" message. It benefits you and me - you don't get any more emails in your inbox and I don't pine away for something, wondering if I'm going to get it or not, and checking my email every 15 minutes to see if I got it and need to go get it now. Because I will come get it that day. If both the offerer and I are online at the same time, I've even picked something up in less than 30 minutes of it being posted. But some people have to wait days or a week until the weekend or until they can borrow or rent a truck to pick something up and the offerer refuses to post a "TAKEN" message until the item is literally picked up. That annoys me. Lets not leave each other hanging, people!
So, I want to hear from you - do you have a Freecycle pet peeve?
I've received a couple of good pet peeve comments on my Facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/umeandb!
ReplyDeletesing it sister! My taken posts come immediately after the reply to give someone my address. If I plan to mull it over a bit I will say directly in the offer something like "I expect a lot of interest so be clear in Why you want it, and When you can pick it up *after noon tomorrow* as I will not decide who will receive the item until late this evening"
ReplyDeleteCourtesy people...it's important.