Is this a complaint?

One of the upsides of the pandemic has been my group chat with Charlene and Karen. They’re both friends from church, and I’ve known Karen since college. The chat started as a way to stay connected during covid, but we’ve kept it going since we’re good friends. We use it as a sounding board for whatever we’re going through, but sometimes we also have discussions on deeper topics.

This past weekend, I was looking for a houseplant for a housewarming gift, so I went to a couple local nurseries to scope out what’s available. It was kind of overwhelming, but I wandered around and also decided to get a mint plant for myself.

In the process of comparison shopping, I discovered that Summerwinds charges $10 to repot a plant, while it was free at Yamagami’s.

I reported this to the group chat, and added that I was going to be reflecting this in my Yelp review.

“Tweet the CEO,” joked Charlene.

I laughed, “Nah. It’s fine I’ll support local businesses. It’s not a complaint, it’s an observation. I’m doing my part to educate the public.”

Karen chimed in, “It is a complaint if you are reflecting it in your Yelp review.”

“It’s a comparison,” I pushed back. “Wirecutter does comparisons and I don’t think of those as complaints. I’m just doing my own consumer reports.”

“It’s not a complaint if you don’t deduct stars,” Karen said. “If you do it’s a complaint.”

“So Consumer Reports is also complaining? They rank things and deduct rating for things.” I wasn’t buying it, but ultimately what she defined as a complaint was up to her…it didn’t feel like a complaint to me.

“If you are deducting stars aren’t you complaining about something wrong with the product? Also ranking is different. I do not liken Consumer Reports to Yelp; they don’t serve the same purpose.”

I was about to say that I should write a blog post on this topic when Karen beat me to it, “You should write a blog post about what do you define as a complaint.”

Challenge accepted. Below is my review of Summerwinds:

In the past I’ve been less gracious (and probably more complain-y) in my reviews, but these days I try to just state the facts, and then base my rating and review on that. Is it subjective? Absolutely. Is it a complaint? Only if you think all Yelp reviews are complaints (and I don’t blame you if you do).