It costs nothing!

Some of you will know even an old techophobe like me hasn't managed to avoid the gargantuan pit of prurience otherwise known as Facebook. What FEW of you know is, in an attempt to avoid Troll's wrath over the increasing size of my Amazon account, I've taken to tinkering with a couple of applications on Facebook rather than reading whilst the morning bucket of tea is quaffed.... namely Farmville and Farmtown.

Now, these are seemingly innocent little pasttimes - you go in, create your own farm and gradually work your way up the various scales until you reach the giddy heights of level 34 where there is no more left to learn. All very cute and totally pointless you might think... until you realise that on Farmtown you have to engage with other players to get them to come and harvest and plough for you - both sides obtain benefits that way. And THIS, gentle readers, is where the problem lies; because once again we come up against the repulsive brick wall formed of the lack of manners instilled in the general public. It's bad enough when the time comes, your crops are ripe and you need to go to the marketplace to find bods to do the work for you - there are usually plenty of people in there giving ample evidence that the Government's literacy programmes are doing nothing to make the country more able to express itself in print in a coherent fashion, believe me. 'Hire me plzzzzzzzzz' is the standard request - which in my case earns the pleader an instant click of the 'ignore' button. You get the picture: I suppose I should be grateful there is at least a 'plzz' in there. However, the situation just gets even more appalling when the little critters are actually hired and supposedly doing the 'jobs' on your farm ...

If you employ somebody to harvest, they get paid in the currency of the game. This means they have more to spend on geegaws to tart up their own farms or merely to buy seeds to grow their own crops. If you employ somebody to PLOUGH (not 'plow' as the game unfortunately insists you spell it) they get paid a smaller amount but also get 'experience' (XP) points which help them progress up the levels. Because of the way in which the game is weighted, you tend to end up being a multimillionnaire once you've reached a certain level, but you still need XPs... so ploughing jobs are more sought after by the higher graded players.

Why I am I boring you all with this? Principally because this morning, I employed a taciturn little soul to come and harvest various things which had ripened overnight. Normally I automatically give the subsequent ploughing to the person I employ - viewing it as a sort of reward in some ways I suppose. Anyway, this little madam pottered around with some of the crops (the higher value ones of course) but then claimed she couldn't see that some of them were indeed ready for her desultory attention. Not once was a 'please' or a 'thank you' used. She then, without missing a beat said 'I want to plow'. Red rag to bull time, here we come....

I went to a buddy's farm to request they come and finish off the harvesting and gave THEM the ploughing. Instant 'I want to plow' repetition from Muppet, who went ballistic when I pointed out that she'd not shown any evidence of having any manners, hadn't finished the harvesting and therefore her services were no longer required. In the course of the ensuring cyber-spat, it turned out it was all MY fault she hadn't said 'please' or 'thank you' and that she couldn't 'see' that there were other things waiting to be harvested. Work that one out if you will... add 'omnipotent' to my list of accomplishments, shall I?

God give me strength. The manners issue is one I've come to understand is completely ubiquitous: ie. it's extremely unusual these days to come across somebody who behaves with any degree of politeness. But I admit I have a problem coming to terms with the complete inability of the general population to accept responsibility for their own actions: either in a piddly little nothing-game like Farmtown or in a wider sense in the world at large. This general failure to understand that just sometimes it's better to put your hands up and say 'yes, I cocked up', or 'yes it was me' and actually follow this with 'SORRY' without first saying 'but it was really because of x and therefore I am really completely blameless' I would suggest is causing far more problems than anything the Government are doing.

I have to go and do something vaguely useful now, so I haven't got the time - or, I admit, the energy - to soapbox about this any more but I will close by saying that I believe the only way we're going to actually get out of the mess in which we've got ourselves is by teaching children from the earliest age possible that if they make a mistake they MUST accept it is THEIR mistake, and, more crucially, LEARN FROM IT. Trying to muddy the waters by passing the blame onto somebody else isn't going to do them or the rest of us any good in the long term (although admittedly in the short term it might mean they aren't punished, and therefore the option's tempting, it's true). It's a superficially small, very basic, but truly profound change which would, I believe, alter for the better so much about the world around us.

Oh, and walloping some notion of when to say 'please' and 'thank you' into the little dears wouldn't be bad either... one step at a time...