About Mark

Every article on this site has a name at the top of it. Most of the time, it’s mine.

That’s not vanity. If it were vanity, I’d have picked a better picture. It’s a decision I made before the first page was written, and I want to explain it, because I think it tells you more about what this place is than any “About Us” page could.

The problem with “we”

Read the health and money content that gets pushed at people our age and you’ll notice something. Nobody wrote it.

“We” recommend. “Experts” say. “Studies” show. “Our team” has reviewed. The byline, when there is one, belongs to a name you can’t look up, attached to a company you can’t call, selling you something a faceless “we” has decided you need.

That’s not an accident. A company that doesn’t put a person’s name on the page can’t be held to what the page says. The claim floats. If it turns out to be wrong, or overblown, or just convenient, nobody has to look you in the eye about it.

I grew up around people who signed their work. My father’s name was on the invoice. The man who fixed our roof wrote his name on a scrap of shingle and nailed it inside the attic, so the next guy would know who to blame or thank. That’s how it should be.

Who you’re selling to

Here’s the part I think about every time I write a product page.

The people who buy what Fixity sells are, by and large, my parents’ age. Some are older. They grew up in a world where a handshake meant something and a letter got answered, and they’ve spent the last couple of decades watching that world get replaced by phone trees, fine print, and “your call is important to us.”

They are not foolish. They are not fragile. But they are polite, and they were raised to trust, and the modern way of selling things is built to use both of those against them. Auto-renewals they didn’t notice. Claims that sound like science and aren’t. Refund policies that exist on paper and nowhere else.

If I’m going to sell something to a person like that, I’d better be willing to put my name on it. Not a brand name. My name. The one my kids have. The one that’ll be on the stone.

That changes how you write. It’s hard to overstate a benefit when you’ve got to sign it. It’s hard to bury the cancellation terms when the person reading them could, in theory, find you.

The promise

So here it is, plainly, the way I’d say it across a table. Four things.

I’ll tell the truth. Not the convenient version. If a product does one thing well and three things only maybe, I’ll say that. If I don’t know, I’ll say I don’t know. If I’ve changed my mind, I’ll write a column about it, which I’ve already had to do once and expect to do again.

I’ll cite what the research suggests, and I’ll use that word: suggests. Research on supplements, on sleep, on diet, on most of the things people our age worry about, is real but it’s rarely settled. When I point to it, I’ll tell you what it points toward and where it gets fuzzy. I won’t dress up a hopeful study as a sure thing, and I won’t pretend a sure thing exists when it doesn’t.

I’ll say “I’m not a doctor.” Because I’m not. I’m a man who got tired of watching people get kept in the dark and decided to turn some lights on. That makes me a decent guide to the questions. It does not make me the person to answer the ones about your own body. Your doctor is. If anything I write makes you want to ask them something, that’s the best outcome I can imagine.

I’ll refund without a fight. If you bought something from us and it’s not what you hoped, you’ll get your money back. You won’t have to explain yourself. You won’t have to find a hidden form. You won’t be asked to “reconsider.” I’d rather lose the sale than have you feel, even for a minute, like you’d been handled.

What my name costs me

I want to be honest that there’s a price for this.

A signed page can’t be as loud. The unsigned “we” can promise anything, because no one is on the hook. I can’t. So some of what I write is going to sound quieter, more hedged, less exciting than what the loud pages say. Someone will always be out there promising more.

I’ve made my peace with that. The people I’m writing for have heard plenty of loud. They’ve paid for loud. What they haven’t had much of, lately, is somebody who signs their name and then stands there.

Hold me to it

A name on a page is only worth something if you can use it.

So use it. If something I’ve written is wrong, write to me. If a product didn’t do what the page said, write to me. If the refund took too long or the phone didn’t get answered, write to me, and I’ll fix the process, not just the complaint.

My name is at the top of this column. It will be at the top of the next one. That’s the whole system: a person, a name, and a promise you can hold in your hand. It’s old-fashioned. So is the handshake. I’ve noticed both still work.