aaronkb
Well-known member
- Joined
- Apr 13, 2022
- Messages
- 104
- Reaction score
- 66
Update: Andrew from TUS replied here, took ownership of the situation and apologized. I feel a hell of a lot better, and TUS is back at the top of my list - the negative experience has been addressed, and I’ve had several very positive ones.
As for this debacle of a thread, we should think about how we treat each other. Multiple people PM’d me lengthy messages of support that they weren’t willing to post publicly. A lot of people in this thread were thoughtful in their disagreement, but some attitudes were downright toxic. The amount of bitterness and hostility is insane.
Hi everyone,
I’ve recently had a bizarre and honestly really hurtful experience with TUS, which has always been my favorite shop. I’m posting for multiple reasons: I’d really love to a) get some validation that you’d be upset too, or b) get some outside perspectives that might change my mind and make me think about it differently if you think I’m wrong. I’d also be thrilled if this prompts them to respond and offer some kind of explanation, since I’ve been unable to get one on my own.
The tl;dr version is that they inexplicably excluded my entry from their contest, read and ignored my polite message asking about it, and read and ignored a follow-up message after that.
Ok, buckle up…
I’m sure many of you saw their recent 30-second instrumental contest on Instagram. They invitedthe community to post reels/stories of instrumentals, which they then reposted in a story (every entry) on their own page and then selected finalists from there.
I was really excited to enter, and got more excited watching their story every day and seeing everyone else’s amazing entries. I worked hard to condense my version of Cherry Wine by Hozier into something that felt complete in 30 seconds, practiced a ton so I wouldn’t accidentally play it my usual way, and went outside with my patient and supportive girlfriend to record a ton of takes. I sorted through all of them and managed to trim a handful down to exactly 30s. I sent my favorites to my parents, who are both musicians (my dad was my original guitar teacher), and they helped me pick the best one. Finally I posted it on my Insta and reposted it to my story, tagging TUS both times. Here it is if anyone’s curious. I’m pretty proud of it, despite what followed.
I posted it on the last day before the deadline and they “liked” it from their official account, so I figured I was good. When I tagged them in the reel Insta automatically sent it to them in chat, and when I posted it to my story Insta automatically sent it to them in chat a second time. I deleted the second from chat bc it was redundant. I added the following message: “Thanks for running this competition, I’ve loved hearing all the other entrees. And Andrew, thanks again for helping me pick out this uke! I love it.” As you can see, I was feeling very positive toward TUS, Andrew, and the contest.
I kept waiting to see it on their story which I was really excited to be part of, but it didn’t appear. I didn’t wanna nag or hassle, and I trusted that everything was ok since they’d liked it. Maybe they were just staggering the entries, and they never necessarily said that they’d have them all posted by the deadline.
I woke up the next morning and checked their story first thing, and discovered that my entry still wasn’t there but the latest story posts were announcing the ten finalists. I was confused. Why was my entry left out of the story, and had my entry even been considered in the contest?
At this point I was bummed and confused but not at all angry. I’m in a position of leadership at work and always remind my people that “mistakes happen.” I never get angry over an honest mistake. I sent them the following message: “Just wanted to make sure, did my entry make it into the contest? I never saw it in the story” followed by a half-frown emoji. Instagram indicated that my message was read almost immediately, but nobody replied. I couldn’t understand why my question didn’t merit some type of response, whatever the answer.
I got progressively more upset about them leaving me on “read” while I waited for any kind of response. Had they not read it I would have understood and been patient, but I couldn’t fathom why anyone would read a message like that and not feel the person on the other end deserved some kind of answer.
After waiting a day and a half I was VERY upset. I sent the following message:
“So it’s been a bit….
I’m not asking for special treatment. I don’t care about winning, the finalists you chose were awesome. But it feels really, really crappy to be super excited about being part of this awesome collection of uke instrumentals, work hard on a unique arrangement just for this, record tons of takes and choose/edit the best one, and put myself out there only to not be included in the story that was meant to be all of the participants and then be ignored when I asked about it.
It would have been so easy to respond, to acknowledge my question in some way, to go back and add my entry to the story at least…. But instead I’m left on read with no response and in the humiliating position of begging to be part of something I was really excited to enter.
Again, I don’t care about winning or not. I was just really excited to participate in this, and not only was my entry not included in the story, I was ignored when I asked a question about it. It sucks.”
I followed this with, “I’ve always really loved HMS and TUS but idk how to feel about all that”
I want to emphasize that while I was very direct about my experience and what I was feeling, I was careful not to attack or insult them or their character in any way. There was no ad hominem, no name-calling, no criticism, not a single bad word. I wanted to express myself fully but in a way that was civil and reasonable, and that would leave the door open for a reply.
Once again, my message showed as being read almost immediately. No reply.
At this point I was extremely hurt. These were people I had admired in the community. I had bought instruments from them, interacted with them about my purchases, I’d watched a ton of their videos, I thought it was so cool of them to run this contest, I expressed that to them…. And they saw my entry, excluded my entry from the compilation story, read and ignored my reasonable message asking about it, and read and ignored my message expressing how hurtful that all was. This was the first time I had really put myself out there in the community, and that was my experience.
Before I was willing to say anything or call them out publicly, it was important to me to make sure there wasn’t some kind of explanation; maybe there was a third party or new employee running their IG account for them. Three days after sending my last message on IG, I sent the following email to their support address, with “social media questipn” (yes, including the typo) as the subject line:
“Hello,
I was just wondering how you manage your Instagram - is there someone who’s responsible for reading and replying to messages?
Thanks,
Aaron”
At this point I was starting to feel like a deranged ex, and I knew this would be my last communication to them because it was getting embarrassing. No one responded, which tells me that either the same person in charge of their IG also filters their emails or the whole team was on the same page.
The email was sent on 4/27, over a week and a half ago. My first IG message asking about the situation was sent early on 4/23, more than two weeks ago. The follow-up message was sent on 4/24, also more than two weeks ago.
So where did I go wrong? Why did I deserve to be excluded, brushed off and ignored after being so excited and grateful to participate? Here are a few of my thoughts on possible explanations, none of which make sense:
-this section of random theories edited out to make room for update. Most of them came down to a) why wouldn’t they double check an assumption or b) why couldn’t they just tell me a reason.
So if you made it this far and I haven’t lost you yet, I’d love your take. Is it reasonable or unreasonable for me to be upset? How would you have felt? How would you have handled it? Can you think of a reasonable explanation for their behavior?
I know this has only been one side of the story. I’d love to know theirs, but they refuse to tell me.
Thanks in advance for your thoughts.
Aaron
My contest entry
Screenshots of DMs and Email
As for this debacle of a thread, we should think about how we treat each other. Multiple people PM’d me lengthy messages of support that they weren’t willing to post publicly. A lot of people in this thread were thoughtful in their disagreement, but some attitudes were downright toxic. The amount of bitterness and hostility is insane.
Hi everyone,
I’ve recently had a bizarre and honestly really hurtful experience with TUS, which has always been my favorite shop. I’m posting for multiple reasons: I’d really love to a) get some validation that you’d be upset too, or b) get some outside perspectives that might change my mind and make me think about it differently if you think I’m wrong. I’d also be thrilled if this prompts them to respond and offer some kind of explanation, since I’ve been unable to get one on my own.
The tl;dr version is that they inexplicably excluded my entry from their contest, read and ignored my polite message asking about it, and read and ignored a follow-up message after that.
Ok, buckle up…
I’m sure many of you saw their recent 30-second instrumental contest on Instagram. They invitedthe community to post reels/stories of instrumentals, which they then reposted in a story (every entry) on their own page and then selected finalists from there.
I was really excited to enter, and got more excited watching their story every day and seeing everyone else’s amazing entries. I worked hard to condense my version of Cherry Wine by Hozier into something that felt complete in 30 seconds, practiced a ton so I wouldn’t accidentally play it my usual way, and went outside with my patient and supportive girlfriend to record a ton of takes. I sorted through all of them and managed to trim a handful down to exactly 30s. I sent my favorites to my parents, who are both musicians (my dad was my original guitar teacher), and they helped me pick the best one. Finally I posted it on my Insta and reposted it to my story, tagging TUS both times. Here it is if anyone’s curious. I’m pretty proud of it, despite what followed.
I posted it on the last day before the deadline and they “liked” it from their official account, so I figured I was good. When I tagged them in the reel Insta automatically sent it to them in chat, and when I posted it to my story Insta automatically sent it to them in chat a second time. I deleted the second from chat bc it was redundant. I added the following message: “Thanks for running this competition, I’ve loved hearing all the other entrees. And Andrew, thanks again for helping me pick out this uke! I love it.” As you can see, I was feeling very positive toward TUS, Andrew, and the contest.
I kept waiting to see it on their story which I was really excited to be part of, but it didn’t appear. I didn’t wanna nag or hassle, and I trusted that everything was ok since they’d liked it. Maybe they were just staggering the entries, and they never necessarily said that they’d have them all posted by the deadline.
I woke up the next morning and checked their story first thing, and discovered that my entry still wasn’t there but the latest story posts were announcing the ten finalists. I was confused. Why was my entry left out of the story, and had my entry even been considered in the contest?
At this point I was bummed and confused but not at all angry. I’m in a position of leadership at work and always remind my people that “mistakes happen.” I never get angry over an honest mistake. I sent them the following message: “Just wanted to make sure, did my entry make it into the contest? I never saw it in the story” followed by a half-frown emoji. Instagram indicated that my message was read almost immediately, but nobody replied. I couldn’t understand why my question didn’t merit some type of response, whatever the answer.
I got progressively more upset about them leaving me on “read” while I waited for any kind of response. Had they not read it I would have understood and been patient, but I couldn’t fathom why anyone would read a message like that and not feel the person on the other end deserved some kind of answer.
After waiting a day and a half I was VERY upset. I sent the following message:
“So it’s been a bit….
I’m not asking for special treatment. I don’t care about winning, the finalists you chose were awesome. But it feels really, really crappy to be super excited about being part of this awesome collection of uke instrumentals, work hard on a unique arrangement just for this, record tons of takes and choose/edit the best one, and put myself out there only to not be included in the story that was meant to be all of the participants and then be ignored when I asked about it.
It would have been so easy to respond, to acknowledge my question in some way, to go back and add my entry to the story at least…. But instead I’m left on read with no response and in the humiliating position of begging to be part of something I was really excited to enter.
Again, I don’t care about winning or not. I was just really excited to participate in this, and not only was my entry not included in the story, I was ignored when I asked a question about it. It sucks.”
I followed this with, “I’ve always really loved HMS and TUS but idk how to feel about all that”
I want to emphasize that while I was very direct about my experience and what I was feeling, I was careful not to attack or insult them or their character in any way. There was no ad hominem, no name-calling, no criticism, not a single bad word. I wanted to express myself fully but in a way that was civil and reasonable, and that would leave the door open for a reply.
Once again, my message showed as being read almost immediately. No reply.
At this point I was extremely hurt. These were people I had admired in the community. I had bought instruments from them, interacted with them about my purchases, I’d watched a ton of their videos, I thought it was so cool of them to run this contest, I expressed that to them…. And they saw my entry, excluded my entry from the compilation story, read and ignored my reasonable message asking about it, and read and ignored my message expressing how hurtful that all was. This was the first time I had really put myself out there in the community, and that was my experience.
Before I was willing to say anything or call them out publicly, it was important to me to make sure there wasn’t some kind of explanation; maybe there was a third party or new employee running their IG account for them. Three days after sending my last message on IG, I sent the following email to their support address, with “social media questipn” (yes, including the typo) as the subject line:
“Hello,
I was just wondering how you manage your Instagram - is there someone who’s responsible for reading and replying to messages?
Thanks,
Aaron”
At this point I was starting to feel like a deranged ex, and I knew this would be my last communication to them because it was getting embarrassing. No one responded, which tells me that either the same person in charge of their IG also filters their emails or the whole team was on the same page.
The email was sent on 4/27, over a week and a half ago. My first IG message asking about the situation was sent early on 4/23, more than two weeks ago. The follow-up message was sent on 4/24, also more than two weeks ago.
So where did I go wrong? Why did I deserve to be excluded, brushed off and ignored after being so excited and grateful to participate? Here are a few of my thoughts on possible explanations, none of which make sense:
-this section of random theories edited out to make room for update. Most of them came down to a) why wouldn’t they double check an assumption or b) why couldn’t they just tell me a reason.
So if you made it this far and I haven’t lost you yet, I’d love your take. Is it reasonable or unreasonable for me to be upset? How would you have felt? How would you have handled it? Can you think of a reasonable explanation for their behavior?
I know this has only been one side of the story. I’d love to know theirs, but they refuse to tell me.
Thanks in advance for your thoughts.
Aaron
My contest entry
Screenshots of DMs and Email
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