Complaints

When you blog it is often to rant against the world or usually a more parochial bent based on your own small province. Humans have an intelligence, brought about by natural selection and like any other part of our physicality, it needs to be exercised. A good rant or complaint has a cathartic effect and clears your mind. We seem to have a predilection to moan about anything and everything and we are very good at it. We are not necessarily constructive or erudite in our gripe, most of us just want to get things "off our chest". 
I claim no high ground , my protests, are often banal  and pointless, achieving little in the way of furthering any intelligent discussion on the subject in hand. A good moan allows us to feel superior in that, we must be in the right otherwise we would have no basis for the complaint. Of course, often the audience we grumble to, will point out, that we are ourselves being unreasonable and that our complaint is without foundation or unjustified.
Little attention is ever paid to the circumstances, with which the victims of the complaint may have found themselves and  provoked your poor comprehension. Many complaints are completely legitimate and justified. High on the list is poor service. Insulting behavior must be another. If people are unreasonable, should we not complain? 
There are people who will not or cannot complain, as you may have gathered, I am not one of those. I believe in justifiable complaints, where ever you find poor service or bad practice. It must be done in a constructive manner, one must not complain for complaining sake. Point out what you expected and how the situation failed to reach those expectations. Of course your expectation must not be so high that that expectation is unreasonable. It is easy to complain for complaining sake and we all know people who will do this. My view starts from the premise that if you don't complain then how can improvements be implemented or an organisation find out that certain practices need review. Employ humour (if appropriate), just ranting will not always capture the attention and you should not always expect any reply, particularly from the written format. 
When dealing with a complaining customer my method was to listen, without interruption, until they finished. If the grievance has some foundation, apologise and ask what they would like you to do about it? Often someone who is dissatisfied has not thought about what they want you to do in order to rectify the issue. 
Ironically when discussing a complaint one often falls into complaining about the complainant!
We will never stop objecting to those incidents that irritate us and it would be foolish for us to do so, it is an intrinsic part of human nature and should be cherished. I would encourage remonstrance in all it's formats, as long as we are prepared to except the consequences of our actions.