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Why So Serious?
Some people will decide this blog post is a personal attack on them. They will do so no matter that they are not mentioned, were not considered during it's writing, and in no manner influenced my thoughts on the subject. But they will still represent I am attacking them personally because their need to be a victim outweighs any semblance of reason.
To these people, stop reading now.
Fine, warning complete. Anyone pretending I am attacking them personally is an idiot and I promise only that my response to your claim will be slanted to piss you off and then I plan to laugh at your resultant outrage. If you desire to pursue this path I must admit, I wish I had so few concerns in life that I could spare the time to pretend being victimized by someone who cannot even remember my name. But hell, I will gladly play along because free entertainment is priceless.
Anyone who knows me for any amount of time knows that I develop sayings as a shorthand way to sum up my feelings. For while I am not above stealing the quotes of others, I enjoy putting my own spin on things. One of these saying that I use 10+ times a week is:
"There are things in the world worth getting upset about. This is not one of them."
I trot this out a lot when dealing with service personnel, when waiting in line, when trying to let folks know I am not upset about something that has happened. It is my way of defusing a situation, of letting people know that I will not be responding in a standard manner and blaming them for things beyond their control, and most importantly, it is a way for me to remind myself of how I want to act.
And, admittedly, it is something I use to piss off the people who are acting in an unreasonable manner. These are the people screaming at the cashier because something is priced incorrectly, screaming at the teller because identification is required, screaming at the server because a mistake was made.
When I raise my voice, it fills a room. Hell, my voice fills a room when I am not trying. So when I make comments they are heard. When the server or cashier or whoever apologises to me for something, I put them at ease and put everyone else on notice. In the rare cases when the cashier or server or whoever is actually at fault, I do not yell at them, I speak to the manager. Because this is rarely something worth getting upset about. Normally it is a business failure and the manager is in charge of these types of things and by speaking reasonably to the manager I get results.
Oh certainly I might get instant gratification by yelling and screaming and bending people to my will but my mind always goes to the consequences and rather than getting my way once, I create an environment where I get excellent service all the time by dealing with people respectfully and demonstrating that I will be reasonable.
And if I still get bad service after this? Well, there are a lot of places looking to separate me from my cash and I'll move on to one that will be a tad more focused on customer service. I may write a review, I may send a letter, I will tell all of my friends. but I will do so in a pragmatic and reasonable manner so that I can look back on my behaviour and not be shamed by it.
After all, we should all be our own harshest critic when it comes to our own behaviour and if we find ourselves always blaming others for our outbursts, well, Houston, we have a problem.
To these people, stop reading now.
Fine, warning complete. Anyone pretending I am attacking them personally is an idiot and I promise only that my response to your claim will be slanted to piss you off and then I plan to laugh at your resultant outrage. If you desire to pursue this path I must admit, I wish I had so few concerns in life that I could spare the time to pretend being victimized by someone who cannot even remember my name. But hell, I will gladly play along because free entertainment is priceless.
Anyone who knows me for any amount of time knows that I develop sayings as a shorthand way to sum up my feelings. For while I am not above stealing the quotes of others, I enjoy putting my own spin on things. One of these saying that I use 10+ times a week is:
"There are things in the world worth getting upset about. This is not one of them."
I trot this out a lot when dealing with service personnel, when waiting in line, when trying to let folks know I am not upset about something that has happened. It is my way of defusing a situation, of letting people know that I will not be responding in a standard manner and blaming them for things beyond their control, and most importantly, it is a way for me to remind myself of how I want to act.
And, admittedly, it is something I use to piss off the people who are acting in an unreasonable manner. These are the people screaming at the cashier because something is priced incorrectly, screaming at the teller because identification is required, screaming at the server because a mistake was made.
When I raise my voice, it fills a room. Hell, my voice fills a room when I am not trying. So when I make comments they are heard. When the server or cashier or whoever apologises to me for something, I put them at ease and put everyone else on notice. In the rare cases when the cashier or server or whoever is actually at fault, I do not yell at them, I speak to the manager. Because this is rarely something worth getting upset about. Normally it is a business failure and the manager is in charge of these types of things and by speaking reasonably to the manager I get results.
Oh certainly I might get instant gratification by yelling and screaming and bending people to my will but my mind always goes to the consequences and rather than getting my way once, I create an environment where I get excellent service all the time by dealing with people respectfully and demonstrating that I will be reasonable.
And if I still get bad service after this? Well, there are a lot of places looking to separate me from my cash and I'll move on to one that will be a tad more focused on customer service. I may write a review, I may send a letter, I will tell all of my friends. but I will do so in a pragmatic and reasonable manner so that I can look back on my behaviour and not be shamed by it.
After all, we should all be our own harshest critic when it comes to our own behaviour and if we find ourselves always blaming others for our outbursts, well, Houston, we have a problem.