You are one slave drivin' boss! :O
I understand you are frustrated. I wish I could come up with the magic words you want to hear right now.
It's not the same but the only, even close, comparison I can think of is how I respond to people that have worked with me that have had bad days. When asked if I'm ever disappointed in them, I have always explained that I don't examine every single second and don't expect that they be at their max 100 % of the time. They are not machines! I look at who they are, in general, over time and do they make the group stronger. As I would hope they do when I have shitty periods... cause I sure do! Lol But, similar to you, I take myself for a long drive in the country and have a word with myself! ;)
As far as the autovote... Once I consider you part of my core group, I don't itemize every individual post. This is a creative medium, and creativity is going to come and go and be good and bad. As, I'm sure, you have done some weaker posts that don't exactly warrant that specific vote... there are other posts that, I know I have said to myself, I wish I could vote that one post over and over and over and just being allowed to vote once isn't fair! I just hope my votes, on average, are enough to keep you interested enough to keep at this... cause if you ever went away, I would seriously miss the great pics, biting sarcasm, digs, brutal honesty, humor and just over all ... umm.. unique posts and points of view. I know you have made me rethink quite a few things, both to do with your work and life in general. That's worth more to me than any amount of votes!
Spank away! ;)
But I'm still going to stick around.
I'm very hard on my employees, no slacking allowed if a bitch wants to get payed! There are no free lunches!
I do feel like I am entitled to some slacking here and there, a fast post with minimum effort, but definitely not on a daily basis! It's too easy to get into a bad habit of using old stuff and only write something really fast, not fully concentrating. Before you know it, I'm here posting one selfie a day with one line of text, you'd be bored in no time and would stop the upvoting for sure.
I'm glad to have such an understanding and loyal group of people around me, not scrutinising every single thing I do. I like the freedom of expression it gives me, but also that might be too much love and not enough boundaries sometimes. I'm basically a teenager and need to be told off if it looks like I'm a little too carefree with my privileges.
I'm happy to have you here and I hope we continue to have great conversations! :)