Dealing with an Angry Work Force

Holidays always make me think, and since Labor Day is upon us, I’m thinking about America’s work force. Not the saga of whether the Japanese work harder than we do, or whether women get paid as much as their male counterparts or why the unemployment rate in Orange County is at its highest in a decade. I’m thinking about the actual employees who deal with the public on a day-to-day basis: sales associates, operators, receptionists, repairmen, car salesmen, phone solicitors, business executives, waitresses, collection agents, etc.

What I’ve observed is this: Like in life, some people are hospitable and others are just plain rude. And recently, I’ve discovered the key to success in dealing with the snippies: just call back, or return at another hour on another day and it will be like magic. Hocus-pocus: You want to hit someone, and then you want to kiss someone. Almost without fail, you’ll be dealing with someone else. A much nicer someone else. A someone else whose kindness seems so profound in light of the treatment you received from a co-worker that you’ll find yourself offering to send him or her presents just for being nice to you. Pitiful, yes, but there are hard times. The labor force is under pressure. Being nice is hard work.
    
Case in point: I don’t watch television. It turns me into a zombie and the news depresses me. I’d rather read a book or go for a walk than tune into an episode of "America’s Most Wanted." So I picked up the phone a few weeks ago to call and cancel my cable.

“Why are you canceling service?” the cable company employee asked me.

“I don’t watch television,” I said, as if it were any of her business.

“Well, I’m sorry,” she said, “but this cable is in someone else’s name; he’ll have to cancel it.”

I explained that that someone else is my television-addicted ex-husband who has since moved out, run off with some woman to an unknown destination and has not left a forwarding address. I explained that it is my apartment, that I have been the one signing the checks and that I had already unplugged the cable.

“I’m sorry, ma’am, but there are no changes allowed on this account,” she said.

“Are you saying I can’t cancel my cable?” I asked.

“That’s correct,” she snipped. “It says here on the computer that no changes are allowed."

I tried to explain to her that that was because someone had come soliciting Showtime or HBO or a sports channel at our door and despite the fact that we said "no," we found it on our bill the following month.

“I’m sorry,” she said, “but there are no changes allowed unless he personally comes to cancel this.”

I asked to speak to the manager. She said he wasn’t there. She took a message. He never called me back. I was cursing the electronics industry, MTV, big business, “American Idol,” and “The Simpsons” when I had a bright idea.

I called back.

I got someone else. That much nicer someone else. I explained my saga in a sympathetic voice, explained about the HBO solicitor and the ex-husband who had run off with the floozie and my dislike for television. She canceled it, no questions asked. Luck on my side, I also told her I thought the cable guide was too confusing. She thanked me for my input. She thanked me.

My neighbor Michael told me a similar story regarding his watch bezel. He has this old watch that needed repairs and he sent it back to the company that made it. He made it quite clear that unless they had all the parts, particularly the bevel, he didn’t want any work done on it. When he called, the woman on the phone would not commit to having the parts.

“Do you have the bezel?” Michael asked her, and being a laid back kind of guy, I’m sure he asked nicely.

“We wouldn’t be fixing the watch if we didn’t have the parts in stock,” she told him, quite brusquely, he added.

So he gets the watch back, which of course has no bezel on it, and gets mad. Then he called the company back and got someone else. That nicer someone else faxed Switzerland, found out they didn’t have the bezel and credited his account for the full repair amount.

In France, this may not work, since rudeness is a cultural thing. But here in America, chances are that if you’re treated rudely, someone is just having a bad day. And chances are just as good that someone else isn’t.