Exerienced cacher's rudeness to newbies

[+thejepsonfamily]

Hi guys and gals, my first forum visit and also newbie to the world of geocaching. I was introduced to the world of geocaching by a good friend whose young daughter died suddendly of cancer and as a tribute made some caches and travelbugs in her honour. Now me being a bit blonde, should I say, after finding a total of 7, yes a whole 7 caches from other good souls on here decided to do my own honour and lay a cache with a travel bug, 'Jeppy the Elephant', for someone to find and take 'Jeppy' on his travels. I was so excited about someone finding 'Jeppy' that I unfortunatly put the wrong co ordinates down. Easy mistake to make, not only blonde and dumb, first timer and al who has not used a compass since girl guides was so not xpecting a back lash from a fellow gecacher! It seems he eats, sleeps, breaths and fullfills his day with 24 hour caching and messaged me to tell me what a dumb arse idiot I was as he had just spent 30 minutes of his life searching for a cache that's coords were wrong and as he was an accomplished 4000 cache finder how dare I say to him ' had he searched everywhere?'. Ok unbeknown to me at that point was I unaware I had put the coords in wrong, he blasted me for my incompotance and said ' he wouldn't be trying my cache again! I disabled my cache and went out at the crack of dawn to check the coords and found, yes I am a numpty they were slightly off so rectified them, got a reviwer to check them, apologised whole heartdly for my mistake and then hoped I was spot on for 'Jeppy' to be found. Imagine my suprise to find that the guy who slated me, was rude and impolite to a newbie was now telling me he had gone to my cache, slated me for it being too easy and no hint was actually needed and took 'Jeppy'! My poor 'Jeppy' is now in the hands of an 'egotistical, I am the best cacher in the world chuff chump'! Should you come across my 'jeppy' on his travels please tell him to keep his trunk up and not all cacher's are like the child catcger in chitty chitty bang bang.

[+T.D.M.22]

Getting someone mad because they misunderstood you?

 

Its a dreadful situation, flood and impending horror for those in the floods path so you can not seriously say there maybe the loss of 10 to 15 caches? Really? You for real? Priorities not your strong point I see

 

Pot Meet Kettle.

 

I agree that was over the top. How did he know his GPSr was off? You said something about a compass? That may have been where the error was, when you create your cache page and enter the co-ords you can view the location on the map to double check it's correct. Assuming you did that if it was that close on the map, but off then maybe he really didn't look hard enough.

[patdhill]

Not wanting to inflame matters but my response below and it will be my one and only post, you can read my logs on the cache page but these are the emails I sent and got back. Last time I offer to help someone new to the game. The coords were changed over 300m so widening the search didn't help and there was no place to side a small at the original GZ.

 

Sent

Hi,

 

Not sure the coords of your cache are out or not but I spent 30 mins looking around with no luck. Someone else has been looking and not logged a dnf as there is lots of trampled grass around. I'm happy to meet you at GZ to check the coords as its only 10 mins from home.

 

Regards.

 

Pat.

 

Received

I did check the coords several times before listing, did you search high and low as it is in a hole in the branch of a tree so not easily spotted, and also camouflaged, I will check tomoz as I am off work, sorry you didn't find it, sharry xxx

 

Sent

I looked up and down and never saw a hole big enough to get a small container in, the arrow was pointing about 30m north from where the track splits on the left about 2m off the path.

 

Patrick.

 

Recieved

Did you search well, its very well hidden in a hole in the branch of a tree. We double checked the location on the coords, will check tomoz

 

Sent after a note was put on the cache page that has since been deleted and the above email.

I looked for 30 mins before I had to go pick the daughter up, funny log of yours after finding well over 4000 caches thanks for pointing out you have to search a lot for some of them.

 

Sorry I'll not be back as it stands.

 

Pat.

 

Sent not long after still trying to help.

I'm still happy to help you confirm the coords. Can't be tonight as I'm helping another cacher out with a puzzle that's tricky to find. Always good to meet new people starting out.

 

Pat.

 

Received not sure of the order now as another message thread was started.

I have just been out to it and you were right my coords were wrong, I initially placed 3 caches, one was what I had listed but I had to take it off as it was too close to other ones. In the mayhem the cache coords got swopped about and it should read 53.39162N, 1.24275W. I have asked the reviewer to change the coords for me but don't know if I will now be allowed to leave it there due to it being close to others? Have left it for now and will see what the reviewer says. This is harder than I thought it would be, sharry x

 

Sent

No probs these things happen when you start out.

 

Pat.

 

Received this was in response to the earlier email I assume

That was a bit rude. This is my first cache and will check the route today, maybe my coords are wrong, am new to this. I was only saying did you search well as it is well hidden, obviously your an expert if you have found 4000 caches, not knowing that I was trying to help out with a tip, there was no need to be impolite and sarcastic about it, that's offensive and just plain rude

[+dprovan]

Thanks for the info, patdhill. I was wondering if this might be a case of a newbie seeing a very polite "Are you sure you've got the right coordinates?" as a vicious attack. In fact, now I'm wondering if most complaints about people being mean to newbies are cases like this.

 

Dear thejepsonfamily,

 

Some people can be really mean and annoying, but when they are at the meanest and more annoying, that's the very time you should imagine that they're just trying to be helpful. When you approach all interactions that way, you'll be much more likely to recognize a case like this one where they really are trying to be helpful, and in a very, very nice way.

[+castagnari]

Closing thread - this is not a place for personal "attacks" on other players