Help me to help you

I don't understand hostility. Perhaps because I'm not a hostile person, it just seems to be lost on me. I'm perfectly capable of unfettered antagonism when the need arises, but at least I'm polite about it.

I've been making substantial changes to one of our core tools at work. Our user base is small but vocal and I'll freely admit that in general they're not treated with the respect they deserve. Consequently we seem to be locked into an unfriendly "them and us" scenario which, if not outright destructive, is certainly less than fruitful. As I've been discovering first hand. Such is the sweeping nature of what I'm doing that I decided we should consult the users before dropping it in their laps. So a small group of users were given access to our test system in order that they could look at what's coming and offer feedback. I think it's here I made the mistake. I assumed that soliciting for feedback automatically implied that the nature of the feedback should be, well, constructive. Unfortunately I was rewarded with great steaming heaps of hostility.

Fortunately I didn't take it personally. I would have once, but I know I'm doing a good job here - I've enjoyed this project more than anything I've done in a good couple of months and I've put a lot of myself into it. I'm not expecting to be feted by any of our users - what's being done is being done out of necessity, and I know it's not going to be to their liking for the most part, but I'm still intent on making their lives as painless as possible, regardless of whether they appreciate it or not.

Now normally I'm content to sit behind the scenes and let others play at diplomatic relations, but I decided to step in at this point. I should probably clarify that most of the users when venting their grievances did actually raise specific issues. They may not have done it terribly politely, but at least they gave me something to work with. I responded to every single one of their points. Where it was feasible to make improvements I made them. Where it wasn't I carefully explained why. Basically I bent over backwards to do the right thing and to make sure they understood the reasons behind why I was doing what I was doing. Oh, the mood amongst them was still fairly tepid and somewhat distrustful, but at least they understood I was on their side.

Except for one user. Rather bizarrely he took great exception to what was being proposed, said it was "rubbish" amongst some other choice terms, (without giving any specific information as to what he felt was wrong) and then copied every single person he knew of in the company in his reply, including a variety of people higher up the corporate foodchain than I, to let them know what a bad job he thought everyone was doing. It was a spectacularly unproductive act, verging, in my opinion, on sheer malice.

It was quickly dismissed by everyone, but it still upset me. Not because he was venting at me (which he was, and publicly too), but because he wasted the opportunity. I personally find it hard enough to effect positive change on any real level that I find it infuriating when others are presented with the chance and squander it. It would have taken so little effort on his part to list his specific grievances, but instead all I got was invective. Even when I politely requested some more information nothing useful was forthcoming.

I don't understand this person. I don't understand people who hold to such attitudes and I don't want to have to deal with them.

Are there many of them out there?