Sunday, Apr. 21, 2002 - 8:41 a.m.
ABOUT THE CRASH LANDING LAST WEEK�
When I was flying back to the West Coast, there were several military people on my flight. This is not an �uncommon� thing considering that California has an over abundance of everything--from sports teams, to prisons, to military bases. I knew that one of the military people was in the air force, because he was working on his CDC�s and I talked with him briefly as I was waiting for the rest of the people on the flight to get to the gate.
Anyway�as we were going down the escalator, there were about thirty people standing on the first floor holding a HUGE banner that said �Welcome Home from Afghanistan Andrew.� Everyone was holding and waving American flags and clapping. My Mom and I stood at the bottom of the escalator waiting to see who Andrew was. (I believe he was one of the last people on the plane because he was helping a woman with a baby with her carry on). When they saw him everyone in the terminal started clapping, and shaking his hand. It was really touching. It almost made me cry. I NEVER cry.
My Mom said something about how things really had changed since Vietnam. Thank God they have. When I went to see the movie �Black Hawk Down� I remember thinking that people in the military do not get paid enough, or enough appreciation. Granted, I live next to a military base, and granted most of my life has (luckily) been spent in peacetime, I still take for granted that I am free and safe because other people are willing to put their life on the line to protect this country.
I have always admired people who did jobs that I could not. Police officers, EMT�s combat soldiers�these are all jobs that I could never do, but take for granted that someone else has.
Every time I have been in a serious accident and in the hospital, I have been �saved� by an African American male. It started when I was fifteen and ended up in an accident and having to spend time in the hospital, and the X-Ray tech was African American. He made me feel so go about myself just by talking to me and calming me down and letting me know that I was going to be okay, and the scarring would not be noticeable.
Four years later, when I was in a car accident, an African American emergency room worker sat with me and held my hand and calmed me down and distracted me while they ran all my tests (I had a bad head injury and did not know if I was alive or dead).
I do not know how people can remain calm in situations like that. Although I know how to handle stress, I could not handle the stress of combat, or of a crazy, screaming woman who is convinced that she is dead. The next time I was taken the to hospital I remember telling the nurse �Thank God, there is a black man working here today, now I know I am going to live.� One of the good things about head wounds is that you are not held responsible for things said while on a gurney.
The point of my rambling?? I need to appreciate people and things more. I could never understand why people hate people they do not know because they are different in some way. Some of the biggest influences in my life have been by people who were strangers at the time they entered my life.
I am going to try and think about how I influence people--positively or negatively. Am I good influence or a bad influence? I find myself being nicer to strangers than to the people I know.
I read in someone�s diary about how she was not treated like a human being while at work because she was a waitress. That she was amazed at how many people had no problem in yelling at her and being mean to her because she was �just a waitress.� After I read that I made a conscious effort to say �Please� and �Thank you� and to be generous when tipping. Once again someone I never met actually had me think about my behavior and alter it.
I have worked with the public, and I know how easy it is to be mean to someone in the service industry. I managed a company and customers had no problem cussing me out and calling me every name in the book because I refused to bend the rules and make exceptions for them.
Part of my job was collecting on bad checks, and you would not believe how shocked and mean people can be when they find out that they can not have services that they did not pay for. I had this conversation a million times:
Me: �Hello _____. I am calling in regards to check # 1234.�
Them: �What about it?�
Me: �It has been returned for NonSufficientFunds and I need to make payment arrangements with you.�
Them: �I already paid you.�
Me: �Yes, but they check has been returned by your bank.�
Them: �So you got the check.�
Me: �Yes, but the bank sent it back to us, because of the NSF�
Them: �So what are you trying to say?�
Me: �That you need to pay for the check, or we will have to cut off your service.�
Them: �Listen B----, don�t you even think about cutting off my service.�
Me: �I will be more than happy to keep your service on, once you pay for this check, plus bank fees.�
Them: F--- you. Try it and I will come down there and kill you.�
Me: �If you don�t make payment arrangements, I will have to forward the check to the D.A. and they will collect.�
Them: �Go ahead you dumb B---. Try it and just wait and see what happens.�
Me: �I have just disconnected your service.�
Click
People usually only did this on the phone. Face to face contact was generally not so vulgar, but that could have been the big men that always were with me when dealing with hostile customers, for my safety. Being treated like this on a daily basis made me a very hostile and mean person.
To be fair--I have been mean right back. The customer is not always right, and considering I would have loved to have been fired, I had no problem telling people what I thought of them.
I once had a women call me to complain that I had disrespected her daughter (who had been caught trying to steal from the store). She called to tell me that she had an A.A. in Business and wanted to explain to me what customer service was, and that she could tell by the way I spoke that I must never have graduated from high school. The conversation went like this.
Her: �The first thing they teach you in Business Class is that the customer is always right, and no matter what you have to stick to that.�
Me: �Actually, the first thing they teach you in a true Business Class is about Taylorism.�
Her: �What?�
�Taylorism. You know Frederick Taylor. Pig Iron. The man for the job and the job for the man.�
Her: �What does that have to do with business this Taylor guy.�
Me: �Oh I�m sorry. Maybe they do not cover this in the undergrad program, but I know that the first year of my four year Ph.D. program we covered business theory and the influence of Frederick Taylor on modern business assessment. As you were saying.�
Her: �What Grad program?�
Me: I have a Masters and am completing my Doctorate in business, but I must have missed the class on �the customer who stole from me is right because the customer is always right.�
Her: �Well I have never heard of Fred Taylor, but that has nothing to do with you lack of customer service, and I think it is rude of you to throw your �so-called� degrees in my face to make me feel stupid.�
Me: �If you feel stupid because I have better degrees than you do, then that is your own insecurity. You inferred that I obviously had not graduated from high school and that you were better than me because you had an A.A.. I am simply stating that if those are the rules to the game, then I really outrank you and from this point forward you can refer to me as �Doctor� since that is technically what I am.�
Her: �Prove it.�
Me: �Come on down and look at me degrees on the wall. I can tell you all about Taylorism.�
Her: �Well, I can see why you treated my daughter so poorly.�
Me: �And I can see why your daughter grew up to be a thief.�
I didn�t get fired over that. I eventually quit. Evil is as evil does.
Remember--say �Please� and �Thank you� and tip well!
TTFN
OKINAWA
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