I remember many years ago after I quit smoking, another smoking friend of mine asked me “how was it going?”…I pondered a moment and replied, “I feel like I lost a really cool friend’. I was serious, but it garnered a few laughs.
Well lately I’ve been having a similar lingering love-lost type feeling, but I couldn’t quite put a finger on it. Now it just hit me; my old pal “Click Through” has been nowhere to be found. Click Through was once the cats’ pajamas! The bees knees! But nowadays, He’s not spoken of in conference rooms or client briefs. He’s no longer touted as the metric of choice. Being one of his closest friends, I think I know what happened to Click Through .. He had an identity crisis that became much too much of a burden to bare. He was not sure wether he was a percentage or a decimal; and consequently lived a LIE as if he were both. People would say “hey, Click Through, way to go man! I heard the great news that you’re at 1%!” He would smile and wave and brush it off as if it were no big deal. But in the lonely hours the truth would begin to bite. He couldnt tell all those happy folks the truth. He couldn’t tell them that he wasn’t at 1%, but that he was really at .1%! “Sometimes life deals a crushing blow” he always used to say. I never really knew what he meant. But hindsight is 20/20, and now his seemingly random remarks are abundantly clear. He was crying out for help; Begging for somebody to release him of the terrible conflict ripping him up inside. If only I knew. …Too little too late I’m affraid….so sad. I wish he would have just said something ! Damn you Click Through! Damn You!! “Guys, I have a confession to make; when I say 1% I don’t MEAN 1/100….. I MEAN 1/1000, or 10/10,000, or 100/100,000!….don’t you see!?”, is all he had to say. But he didn’t confide in me, or anyone else. And now, we’ve lost him, tragically, for good.
RIP Click Through. You’ll always Rate #1 in my book….
