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The new nicer me

I complain too much, anyone who visits this site often will know that. I complain so much that its actually become part of my sites identity and thats not a good thing because I don’t want to be known as Mark, the guy who complains a lot. Not only that but my blog is also starting to get me in trouble.

So far in the past year my boss at work for example has been contacted four times by different companies I had complained about complaining to him about how I have been complaining about them. Luckily, my boss has been very understanding plus these issues just keep getting him more intrigued by this blog thing. But, I have also been pushing my luck.

For me, my blog world is a complete separate entity from my work world. But in reality they are not separate entities because I am not anonymous. I am the same person that goes to work every morning and also posts here at night. I chose not to be anonymous.

This is why I have decided I will no longer be complaining about large multimillion dollar corporations. You can call me a sell out, you can call me a chicken but in the end of the day you are not in my shoes. The blog is only a hobby and its not worth me losing my job, getting sued or getting arrested over. I just went through my blog and deleted a lot of posts which I believe at one point in the future can get me in trouble with the lawyers. So if anything is missing, now you know why.

Say hello to the new nicer me…

60 replies on “The new nicer me”

all this trouble for a website, thank you MARK!!
and please never close down this blog, even if you die!

yeah, see, us bloggers will make sure you are buried with your macbook, and on ur tombstone it can read: MARK: CREATER OF 248AM.COM RIP 😉

NO OFFENCE BY THE WAY

Mark if every one do what you do now then the blogging world will be useless and lame.

i don’t see your complain is bad because you show the bad side of shity company and it’s nice for people

but maybe you do this because you are in kuwait, one of the shitest country in the world that dense freedom of speech.

but i dont think this is a right move….

i mean its your website, write whatever you want,whether people agree or disagree

its called freedom of speech

What ever happened to freedom of speech?
Did that go down the drain?
I can only imagine local companies attacking you.
This is indeed selling out, but then again I really don’t know what kind of pressure you’re under.
If you think things are falling apart you should really consider closing down a couple of things to remain anonymous.

I don’t see how your boss comes under fire for your actions?

good move mark…we are not bound to say what we have in mind…and yeah, more than the existence we should not count anything else…..and I dont know why lot of people see you as a guy posts only complaints…one in 100 posts may have some comments about something…c’mon thats the right of any individual….

good luck man…

My boss has nothing to do with it. He isn’t telling me to stop posting complaints nor is he threatening to fire me. Its other things that have happened outside the office that has led me to this decision.

i believe in freedom of speech but unless i get a lawyer buddy then i can’t complain about large companies on my blog.

legally , i dont think anything will happen to u if u critise some companie`s products , as long as you dont lie .

u gotta check with a lawyer , and see the red lines that can get u in trouble , just be clear on what you can say and what you Can not say .

مارك

عليك بمقاضاتهم أو رفع دعوى عليهم

لك الحق فيما تقول ومطلق الحرية فيما تكتب

البلوغ من خصوصياتك , وبما أنك لم تخطئ في حقهم أو تتجنى عليهم , فلا يحق لهم مقاضاتك

لا تجعلهم يرهبونك ويخيفوك

تحية

i have a lawyer buddy you have have on loan. I’ll swap him for some cookies?

anyway, I do agree with you on your decision. I have choosen to stop being “as personal” as I used too due to alot of factors that came up in my life & I don’t want to blow my identity to the wrong people.

This is all Nat’s fault, you were a lot more mellower before you got married.

Before her a shawarma was a shawarma; after Nat it has become this diatribe over the way they cut the onions.

My Mark died a long time ago.

I would assume you have deleted topics such as “Fast Telco sucks” 🙂
Good move. This is not a free country – and you are not anonymous. I am actually surprised that you got away with some of the things that you posted on the blog.

Bullshit dude. I’m disappointed.

First you curb your KTM ‘prostitution’ Article – and now you cut out all the exposee on the corporate shits who screw Kuwaiti’s and its residents on a daily basis. Without awareness, how the hell do we change and progress?

Screw that, you’re forgeting freedom of speech Mark. If you’re not getting threatened from your boss, then what’s the problem? Just put in a certified disclaimer at the bottom, and keep your views alive and uncensored.

What shall we expect next from 248 – positive spins on those trash FastTelco and Showtime services?

I didnt mind the old you.. But its your choice to change and your right were not in your shoes..
Anyways Hii nicer Mark. I hope the choice you made is a good choice.

A qoute i LOVE, keep it in mind
~> “A challenge is exciting and a sign of life, the people with no challenge are the people who are dead” Hope it helps..

Mark you are being very cheap on recent move

first move is with “porn stuff”
now about complaining

i will wait for your third move for deleting all your reviews

Whenever I complain about something, I usually try to point out the mistakes so that others don’t fall for them. I don’t discourage people to stop using the service or product, I simply point out the faults.

I’m disappointed, arabs remain arabs, you’re forgeting the freedom of speech Mark, I’d still love to hear your rants, what about a new blog with a hidden identity?

1. write for something/somewhere that makes money and will pay you.

2. Write for a publication (online or otherwise). That only a specific group of people read

3. make sure that they have a legal dept. to back you .

After that lucid moment I shall promptly go back to making fart jokes …….

I really don’t think it’s even possible to get in trouble for insulting corporations. Not even in Kuwait. I highly doubt that foreign corporations are going to say anything either.

Mark,

As a regular reader of your blog, I’d look forward to your “complaints”, which I considered a breath of fresh air in this stuffy world! But I guess you’ve got to do what you’ve gotta do…

Keep the reviews coming and good luck with the new ‘nicer’ you. I’ll miss the old one 🙁

Hi
Nicer Mark. So how r u ? Hope u r not in any trouble. This is your blog & i believe everyone else should repect your decisions regarding it.

However it was nice to read your views regarding the various corporates & their service levels & your experiences.

I also believe that the popularity of your blog was largely governed by the fact that you spoke your mind here. Now, I hope I am proved wrong, but if u try to curb that natural instinct of yours, this blog might lose some of its charm.

My suggestion would be just to tone down your condemnation of the pathetic service you get from the various corporations & avoid generalisations & branding the entire corporation as something useless, based on your experience. I do not believe that anybody can cause any kind of legal hassles if you just put in your experiences, minus the colourful expletives & your own angle ( we the readers will definitely miss it). This might keep the blog closer to your natural self & also keep you away from trouble. Maybe you can add a standard disclaimer ” This is my one-off experience & I am not responsible for the conclusion that readers draw from it”.

Just my 2 cents.

Hoping again that you are not in any kind of big trouble.

dude… i guess you are just gettin older and smarter.. as one gets older he tends to realise that being a rebel etc just aint gonna work. has nothing to do with freedom of speech an all that. one just realises that “man i got better things to do that to just sit here and bitch about anything and everything.”

Everyone seems to be focused on the fact that it will be a different blog. Is this a good blog because its all about complaining? or is it a blog with good content. If people like the first, there are plenty of places to do that, and is easy to do. If people think of the latter then there is nothing to worry about because the content will keep flowing.

hmmm…..i understand wanting to cut down on complaining, but deleting ur older posts and never complaining again does seem a bit too much Mark.

I have another comment, and dont take it in the wrong way, but ive noticed you;ve been putting posts about discounts at certain shops, which seemed very weird and uncomfortable, its not like reading mark’s blog, its like reading paid ads…

now this too…

dude, this blog is ur blog, its about ur opinions, and when complaining about something, ur not just randomly insulting companies, ur talking about specific experiences that companies should take note off, not get annoyed that ppl are knowing about!

Less complaining is good, it gives ur complaints more credibility anyway, but stopping altogether doenst solve anything, it will make u pissed off without venting, and will make companies blind to bad experiences

Q the lacoste discount thing I posted because I got an SMS saying they had a discount and when i shared it with some workmates they found the info helpful and so i decided to share it with everyone online figured other people might like to know. it wasn’t a paid advertisement or anything of that sort. I would post a disclaimer stating it was a paid ad if it actually was a paid ad. I wouldn’t pass an ad as a personal post because that would hurt my credibility.

About the second part of your comment, I know this is my blog, I know these are my opinions and I know I am not doing anything wrong and that if I am sued I most probably would win. BUT, is it worth the risk for me? What if I lose the case, why should I actually go through all the shit of a court case here in Kuwait. What if another company I complained about sees whats happening and also decides to sue me?

I will continue complaining but most probably it will be in a form of an email to management. I love this blog and I love complaining about stuff, small or big, but I am not ready to fight with large influencial companies with a lot of money and wasta.

BTW, I deleted old posts because for example the post that got me into shit was like 3 months old. So its not like something current that got me into trouble. Its old posts that might come and haunt me back.

Mark, ya about the discount thing, my bad, i realized looking over some old posts that its just meant to be interesting stuff.

About the risk, ur right its not worth the risk, but to be fair, you say as many good things about good experiences as bad things about bad experiences, so if you dont “complain” any more, does that mean you cant talk positively about certain experiences too?

The only problem with you is that you work in a field where any of these companies could be a potential client, so I can understand some of the anxiety, but fear of getting sued doesnt seem to be justified since ur posts are mostly reasonable.

Again, I hope you just cut down on complaining and not stop altogether, trust me. I rarely complain about companies in my blog, but when I did in a couple of occassions, I got a great response from the companies and a serious attempt in trying to understand and fix the problem.

Q its not the fear of maybe I will get sued. I was actually put in a situation where I had two options

1) edit the post
2) get sued

I decided not to edit the post but delete it completely.
Maybe if I didn’t have a lot to lose I would have kept the post, told everyone here about what happened and gone to court. But I do have a lot to lose and in the end the blog isn’t a priority in my life.

If I do end up complaining now though it will be more toned down like ran mentioned above. Less dramatic, more straight to the point and no vulgarities and accusations.

So… Like now what are you going to talk about 🙁 This sucks man.. :/ Are you going to stop your restaurant reviews ? Did GDTV Make you do this ? 😛

hmm…I saw this coming one day but didnt expect it to happen so soon.whatever happened to freedom of speech n expression buddy?? well i guess freedom of speech carries with it an equal freedom of listening and unfortunately for you not many enjoyed listening to it!!Well its a good thing u bowed out of this buddy than jeopardizing urself n ur wife and as u know at the end of the day “David” would have never won!!u should also consider actively moderating the forums from all those racist comments especially against muslims & kuwaitis (im neither Q80 nor musilm) as it might be fun for us but u know jsut like ur email bout virgin went all the way to its HQ, a link from this place can also get u into trouble cuz freedom of speech in this country is still a fucking foetus!!

” I’m disappointed, arabs remain arabs, you’re forgeting the freedom of speech Mark, I’d still love to hear your rants, what about a new blog with a hidden identity? “

I don’t understand how you could be sued by a company for giving your honest opinion about it. Other people have written reviews (myself included) of products from much larger and powerful companies and never gotten into any trouble. On the contrary, they usually send free samples of their “newer” and “better” versions of the products tested. What gives?

I fully intend on slicing up MTC in the upcoming days…..It’ll be a no holds barred rant. It’s not like it’s a pointless vendetta, the idiots at these big companies are either simply not listening or not doing anything about it! Why should we be forced to put up with needless headaches and avoidable errors?

Blogs are the ‘thorn’ in many Corporates ‘sides.’ This blog has proved that even the little man’s voice can make a difference.

I’m personally disappointed with Mark’s decision; as it will only help to bolster the image of the ‘don’t speak until your spoken to’ attitiude – which exists so prevelantly in the region.

Hello Mark!

to me, you’re not new.
I read this blog because I feel related to the posts it includes, be it technology, photography, information, Geo or links. And the “complaining” part won’t change a thing… at least to me.

So Hello again the good ol’ Mark 🙂

Hey Mark..hello to the new Mark:0! but i think u shud just one down ur way of complaining..not ban it completely…i mean v all have our views.btw was is showtime?

Yeah – tell us who it was!

Here’s an idea – use sarcasm man!

If service is slow – say “I was ‘extremely pleased’ with the service which took 1 hour instead of the expected 10 minutes.”

If customer service is rude – say “I have no doubt that someone, somewhere appreciates the ‘wonderful job’ the customer service representatives are doing at this fine establishment. Customer service like this is truly hard to find.”

If the onions are cut wrong – say “Although my preference is for a few onions diced into small pieces, I was ‘pleasantly surprised’ to find that this sandwich shop cut them laterally into longer strips that I’m sure others would enjoy.

… you get the idea.

LOOL ya sarcasim is the way to go..
Thats funny..

Mark just do what you want.
Everyone look on the bright side, the blog will still be here..

We should onlly forgive this sudden change of heart if Mark was asked to remove offending comments in exchange for a brand new product from the displeased company. Let’s hope it was like a new Range Rover or something, after the posts complaining about service at car dealerships.

I started getting into trouble when some people here found out or let’s say i revealed my identity, some Aholes leave comments that i ignore but yea as you said Mark, the blog is me, mine, a piece of my life; whether known or anon.. keifi and as long as one is saying the truth, there ain’t nothing to worry about! I hate how shallow people are taking things personally (unless in politics, religion of course).. I happen to like & enjoy your website 🙂

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