Evergreen said 9 years, 7 months ago:
Most of you will have heard about 7cupsoftea, perhaps you may even be a user of the website yourself. I’m going to talk a little about my experience while I was there and I thought of it.
Firstly, it’s a website where people can go and choose their own listener or have one at random while remaining completely anonymous. There are forums and a live chat for listeners only. You can keep upto date with the people you talk with and form some great friendships with the other listeners, sounds great right? That’s just the cover of it, once you dive deep inside you start to realise all the problems there are.
When I first started out there as a listener, I thought it was amazing. The community seemed really cool, I liked the idea of the listener knowing a bit about you beforehand etc. The founder is Glen Moriarty, he regularly received a tonne of praise yet he’s hardly ever active and had his underlings take care of everything for him (like most founders). There was a mentor and ambassador team which were the people who were in charge of 7cups. Anyone could become a mentor providing they had experience and were liked.
However, the team was ultimately flawed. They were all basically members that everyone liked and who could crack a good joke and people without 2 brain cells. Anyone who mentioned problems with the rules or suggestions which diverged from their views were brought down in the most condescending manor. They had the right to judge other listeners for their performance and actions, yet they themselves were thought of as “perfect” I couldn’t stand this.
Anyway, I was there for the members. I didn’t participate in the forums, most of my time was spent listening to people. The community there was constricted and the mentors and higherups were regarded in high honour while the the others were just ignored unlike blahtherapy which is a lot more open and everyone is treated equally.
Now let’s move on to the real problem in my whole experience. One day I received completely out of the blue from a higher up, it told me that my work at 7cups was greatly appreciated but I had violated community guidelines and therefore my listener account had been suspended… My mind was racing with thoughts: how, why, when? (bare in mind that this was the first time that I had been in trouble). I emailed back, asking for explanation and guess what… I was ignored. Erased from time itself, like I never even existed.
Do you know what the worst thing of all was? Not the fact that I didn’t receive a warning, not the fact that I don’t even know what it was for but the fact that I could not speak to my members one last time to tell them goodbye or that I wouldn’t be coming back. It really pained me and I was in utter disbelief that they would do something like that. A few members told me that they had been abandoned by previous listeners in the past and I made them a promise that I would be there for them while I as active… Now I disappeared out of the blue. Imagine what they think of me? How does that make me feel?
It keeps me awake at night… Thinking about that promise that I made, a lot of those members were very unstable and thought they had a true friend in me. Guess what? I let them all down.
Is it a good listening website? Oh absolutely.
Does it have a caring, considerate, wise mentor team? You decide. At least at blahtherapy I’ll know that, I’ll always be welcome. I couldn’t ask for anything more. Thank you
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