Left a 1 star review over a $4 screwdriver, then I read their reply and felt sick about it
Back in 2021 I dropped a one star review on a small hardware shop in Tacoma because a $4 screwdriver snapped on me and the kid at the counter wouldn't swap it without a receipt. Two days later the owner replied, saying he was 68 and had just lost his wife to cancer that month, but he'd still honor the return if I came back in. That's when it hit me I'd never once thought about the human on the other end of a review, and now I always ask myself who's reading it before I hit post. How do you all decide when a bad experience is worth a public review versus just letting it go?