I feel like venting my spleen
As soon as I typed that title, I started thinking that you don’t often hear people talk about venting their spleens anymore. In fact, I began to wonder, did I ever hear it? Or did I merely read it in old novels? And is its origin in the ancient ideas about the four humors? Choleric, for example?
The answer is yes, it’s about the humors:
The phrase “vent one’s spleen” originates from ancient Greek and Roman medical theories known as humorism. According to this theory, the spleen was believed to be the organ responsible for producing and storing black bile, one of the four humors or bodily fluids. This idiom may be used in various occasions, such as during heated debates, arguments, or discussions where individuals passionately express their discontent or dissatisfaction. It can also be used in personal settings, such as venting frustrations to a trusted friend or family member, or even in written form, like venting through social media posts or blog entries.
Blog entries! There you have it.
Except there’s a glitch. Black bile, associated with the spleen, was historically connected to melancholy. Yellow bile – the “choleric” humor connected with anger – was supposedly secreted by the gallbladder. So it really should be “venting my gallbladder,” shouldn’t it? However, it just doesn’t sound as good.
But I digress. Or do I?
What am I angry about? Maybe not angry; maybe just annoyed – or perhaps even a trifle melancholy? It’s that it seems every time I do anything – have a doctor’s appointment, go to the theater or a museum, have my car fixed – I get an email asking me to rate the experience. I ordinarily don’t answer unless for some special reason I want to give some feedback. But then a day or two later I get a repeat email asking the same thing, and then another, and then another …
Finally it ends. I don’t want to block the email address in case they happen to send me something important. And I realize in the scheme of things this whole topic is very small, almost nothing. But still annoying.
And the phenomenon seems to be building. It started quite a few years ago, but the number of companies or groups asking for feedback was not large. Now the practice seems near-universal. And it’s not as though there’s any evidence the organizations involved actually pay attention and improve their customer service. Quite the contrary.
There now. I feel better. Perhaps I vented my spleen and my gallbladder.
I feel your pain, but I think it has more to do with the ubiquitous “star” rating systems that seem to be everywhere from social media to Google Maps to e-tailers. These seem to have become a shortcut for consumers to decide what product/service/store to patronize, and thus have a real impact on sales.
As long as this is true, I think we must expect that businesses will do everything they can to boost their ratings, including importuning customers for their opinions. As a former business owner, I was acutely aware that one bad “review” could outweigh a host of good ones.
Geez!? Classic Liberals Venting their Spleens … will have to toss the Chicken Bones to rid my mind of such a thought – Shake-sssshhhaaKKKE rattle shaaake rrAAAAAtttlllEEE ‘n *TOSS*!!!!
Bones say: ‘Liberals should be careful venting their spleens—as such can attract bad Karma.‘
For me, the problem is less about requesting feedback, and more that they want to confine the feedback to imbecilic ‘star’ ratings, instead of (usually) excluding the possibility of adding specific comments. The first question they should ask is, ‘Would you like to opt out of providing customer feedback?’ That would probably encourage people to comment more by reverse psychology.
So, I buy a couple packaged of seeds from a specialty house and next day they want me to evaluate their product. Not just how fast they arrived, etc. It’s January in Colorado. Tiresome.
I delete all the feedback requests. Yes, it’s annoying.
Neo, as always: thanks in your sweat.
“Spleenventing.”
Isn’t THIS precisely what Twitter became famous for? And now, as X.com, practical for all?
My friends and I in college used the “venting spleen” figure often. We were a bunch of English and other humanities majors and had picked it up from literature as an amusing alternative to “complain.”
Yeah, every doctor visit, every trip to the grocery story, I’ve even had requests to rate books I’d bought the previous day. I just ignore them now.
Garrett, my part of CO on the Northern Front Range it is Feb, almost March. But the weather makes you think it is still Jan.
I had 3 hr session on the phone about something. IPhone got updated, but an app wasn’t working. Wanted password, which I entered. WRONG!! Then on the phone to India, and they wanted $$ to reset MY password. I got the request for rating the “experience”. I could not go below 1, but I wanted too.
Off topic, something else that makes me upset. Wanting a tip when you fill a cup with coffee.
There, I am done Venting my Spleen.
SHIREHOME:
Yes – but are you done venting your gallbladder?
Being behind the times that I am I , etc
, I regularly pay both my truck insurance and my phone bill in person. I have a T-Mobile account. Originally it was Sprint, but there was some kind of merger / takeover and my account was transferred to T-Mobile. I would get those request for feedback in a text after paying before I could even get to my truck. I kept complaining that the signal was weak at my house and I complained that they started charging Xtra to pay in the store. I expressed my thoughts one time to one of the workers that I thought this was part of a larger plot to go cashless in society. I didn’t get that employee for a while and one month I go in and she says wait a minute. She went and talked to the manager on the phone and came back and said I was hurting their store due to my complaints and they no longer would accept my payments. She falsely accused me of giving the store itself bad ratings even though my survey comments and ratings had been directed to the poor signal and Xtra charge of paying in store. At some point in the numerous surveys I filled out I probably mentioned that the store had told me there was a new tower going up that had not at that time materialized. I now go to a different TMobile store and never answer the survey. I thought about switching to a different company but hate the hassle. Maybe at some point. I did later look up that particular store and it had LGBTQ stuff on the site and I later thought about the strangely small framed, effeminate manager and wondered if ” he” was a “she”…
sharksauce, but now we’ll need to give neo thanks in her bile as well.
Something on the composition of bile here
(As it says there, “while you may not think about bile much…” Well, not since that episode with the stone, at least….)
Hmm… one interesting little detail is that it conveys bilirubin to the intestine! I had always thought bilirubin exited via the kidneys.
I try not to get into venting spleen and negative emotions, but …
I really, really hate Hamas.
I suppose venting your spleen or your gallbladder is no messier than spilling your guts?!!