Back when I was a hot chick (ah, the good old days), I got propositioned by an ex-boyfriend. I was already dating my now-husband, but the ex was a man on a scandalous mission, I tell you. When I turned him down and reminded him of my relationship status (umm, in one), the ex gave me one hell of a line: “Don’t worry about your boyfriend. He’ll get over it.”

Now that I’m married, the propositions are over, but that brazen line stuck with me.

Some companies and brands launch new ventures at the expense of their clients. The reasoning behind dumb decisions are similar to my ex’s line: Don’t sweat it. The customers will get over it.

Guess what? In 2012, customers don’t get over it.

Companies keep emailing us ridiculous offers and irrelevant promotions when all we want is interesting content. Worse when they don’t offer us a chance to unsubscribe. Hello, illegal.

Brands are hiring interns to manage their social media presences because they don’t think interacting with customers (yeah, that’s us) is important enough to spend some dollar bills on.

Social networks (like Google and Facebook) mess around with our privacy settings after we’ve already signed up for and invested time in their services. I’m not going to quit Facebook now when I have a million friends, am I? They’re pretty much doing whatever they want with my information, and I haven’t forgotten. Let’s hope Zuckerberg plays nice?

Brands are becoming more inauthentic at the very moment they should be investing time and money in becoming so authentic it hurts. (I feel so passionately about this that I’m writing an e-book about it.)

This may have been just a rant, but I think it’s important to think about. Have companies and brands treated you this way lately? Have they basically put their hopes on the fact that you’ll just get over it?

(For all inquiring and gossiping minds, I turned the ex down. Obviously. Hubster rocks.)