1-Star Reviews

What's up with 1-star reviews over minor issues? As a society, we seem to have lost our sense of nuance. Things are either absolutely great (5-star review) or absolutely horrible (1-star review) with nothing in between. Let's say you go to a restaurant for breakfast and order an omelet. You order a triple-cheese omelet but they bring you a single-cheese omelet. It's still tasty, but it's not what you ordered. They offer to make it right for you but you just ask for the ticket to be adjusted for the price difference and go ahead and eat the whole thing. Later, you give them a 1-star review over the fact that they got your order wrong. Seriously? Why would you give them a 1-star review for an order they offered to correct and you ate the whole thing? To my way of thinking such a situation might garner a 4-star review. There was nothing else objectionable about the restaurant, they promptly offered to correct their mistake, they did correct the pricing, and the omelet was tasty enough to finish. I would only give a 1-star review if they didn't acknowledge their mistake, didn't offer to make it right, overcharged me, gave me dirty silverware, and the omelet was inedible. My 1-star review would be a warning to other customers that this restaurant isn't worth your time and will likely make you sick.

We now have companies that tell their employees that anything less than a 5-star review is a problem. This was the case for my last job. If I received 4 stars or fewer on any customer review I had to have a talk with my manager about what went wrong. Often, nothing went wrong. I gave great service, but the customer was upset over having to take off the entire day for the service call, or upset because the part to fix their appliance wasn't available locally and would need to be ordered. I would get a low review although I had done my job fully. If the average of my reviews for the week dropped below a 3.5 I'd be written up. If the average was below a 3.5 for the month, I'd be fired. A single 1-star review could sink the weekly average. A handful of 1-star reviews in the month would easily get someone fired.

There are some 1-star situations but they should be exceptionally rare, reserved for those times when something has gone horribly, unforgivably wrong. Likewise, there should be few 5-star situations. Most honest reviews should be 2-4 stars because most experiences are either slightly below average, average, or slightly above average. A 1-star review over a minor problem doesn't help anyone and just makes you look like an asshole. Your 1-star review might even cost someone a job over something that wasn't their fault.