Please follow directions.

Why is it that no matter how carefully and thoroughly you try to explain something in written form and people still manage to do it wrong?!?!

WHY?!?!

K, this is what happened:
I created a form on Google Documents (quite nifty I must say!) and the cool thing is that when people type stuff in the form, it goes directly onto a spreadsheet which the creator can then download in various formats and it makes things MUCH easier to organize (like compiling a wedding guest list for instance). 

So.  I made my form and emailed the direct link out to people.  Piece of cake.  Many replied and had no problem with my little form.  I still had a bunch more people I wanted to send it to but didn't have their emails so I turned to Facebook.  The tricky part is that FB only lets you sent out a message to 20 people at a time.  GAH!  I had to copy and paste the info into multiple FB messages.  Well, ok.  That took a little more effort but still, not hard at all.  I attached the link to the message so all they had to do was click the text and go to the form, fill it out and done!


I start getting a few replies to the message (which A, defeats the ENTIRE purpose of the form, because that means now I have to go retype the info myself, B, they neglect to answer other critical questions, and C, I carefully explained to go to the form and the reasons why).  ARGG!  I find it funny, but honestly it bugs the crap outta me when people don't read AND follow directions.  It seriously is NOT that hard people!  Makes me wonder how they'd do on tests!  (Good thing it wasn't one, eh?  I mean, what if I were to only invite those who actually did it right?)  Some claimed they couldn't see the link or mentioned other "technical" problems.  (I secretly think it's more of a "user" problem).

Anyway.  Lesson learned:  People aren't gonna follow directions no matter how hard you try to help them.