So there I was, minding my own business, when a pop-up asked if I had five minutes to "share my thoughts." Against every instinct I've developed since 2007, I clicked yes.
Forty minutes later I was rating my satisfaction with "local infrastructure" on a scale of one to seven, and honestly, I've never felt more seen or more personally attacked.
The word "encuesta" just means survey, for those of you who skipped Spanish class to "study." And apparently the entire internet has decided my opinions are a hot commodity.
Every website, every app, every receipt from CVS now wants me to answer twelve questions about my experience.
Buddy, my experience was buying toothpaste.
Here's the thing nobody tells you: these things are designed by people who clearly hate you.
Question four asks how likely I am to recommend my electric company to a friend.
I would recommend a root canal before I recommend my electric company, and yet here we are, both pretending this is a normal question.
Then comes the demographic section, which is where the real psychological warfare begins.
Ah, there it is, the range that makes you feel like you should already own a home and have your life together.
Those are just traps with a text cursor. "Please describe your experience in 500 characters or less." I can describe my experience in four: I want to leave.
But no, you have to write something thoughtful because there's a tiny percentage chance a real human reads it and you don't want to seem rude to the robot.
After you've poured your heart into rating the cleanliness of a restroom you'll never visit again, they dangle a sweepstakes entry. "You've been entered to win a $50 gift card!" Congratulations, you've just joined a pool of four million people for a prize that's technically worth less than the time you spent.
The odds are basically "you have a better chance of getting struck by lightning while holding a winning lottery ticket." Somewhere out there, a marketing team is aggregating all of this into a PowerPoint that will be presented to twelve people who will nod and change absolutely nothing.
My opinions went into a spreadsheet to die.
The closing opinion: surveys are the modern equivalent of a customer service line that never picks up, except now you're doing the work for free.
If a company genuinely wanted my feedback, they'd just fix the obvious thing instead of asking me to rate it on a scale of "somewhat satisfied" to "extremely satisfied." But sure, keep the pop-ups coming.
Final Thoughts
I'll keep clicking "no thanks" until I die, which the age-range dropdown has already helpfully reminded me is coming sooner than I'd like.