Spread A Little Joy
Customer Service center at 23d Street downtown terminal (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Customer Service can make or break a business as it can make or break a customer’s day. I’ve recently made the point that I can be a grump. One of my frequently used sayings is, “Sometimes, my patience, is tried.”
Sometimes I do not realize until too late that this is happening and I sometimes erupt embrassng myself. Like the time I shook my fist in the third trip through the drive through getting a prescription filled after surgery (which I mentioned in my blog last week) or when I said, s–t! in front of the grandchildren. It is hard to control yourself sometimes when you have reached your limit.
Today , I assigned myself the job of contacting the customer service departments of three businesses and like the rural salesman seeking a tire jack from a “grouchy” farmer in my favorite joke who says, “You can keep your God Damn jack!” when the farmer opens his door., I was ready to explode and had even had several conversations with the various businesses in my head before calling them.
After a couple of frustrating attempts to reach the various customer service departments, I made my connections and had a pleasant conversation with all three and resolved my issues satisfactorily. I felt so good that I sat down to write this post afterwards. Even though my first assumptions were that the conversations would turn out badly, I didn’t let that color my initial conversations with them. The more cheerful I was the more cheerful they were. So spread a little joy this season or anytime. “Please” and “Thank you don’t hurt” and don’t be rude if you can help it.
A week ago at the phramacy drive though, I was in a nasty mood; but when I tried to resolve the issue over the phone talking to different pharamacies, I changed my tone of voice and let my mad fit go. Sometimes things are not fair; but you don’t have to let them get to you and ruin your day as well as someone else’s day (whose fault, it might not have been initially). Some businesses’s customer service departments are so nice that I think I could call them up to help myself feel better when I am down.
This leads to the final thing I want to say and that is the list of businesses, local, online, or national, that I recommend usually depends on how they treat me when I contact them. I hope these businesses would also recommend me as a customer because of how I treat them.
HAPPY HOLIDAYS!
Related articles
- 10 Tips On Improving Your Company’s Telephone Answering And Customer Service (callcentersforums.wordpress.com)
- The Perks of Having a Good Customer Service Reputation (business2community.com)
- 5 Customer Service Myths [Infographic] (blogs.salesforce.com)
- Anger And Control, Just Let It Go, Let It Go, Let It Go! (myeverydaypsychology.com)
- Is There Room In The Inn? (mutualspiritualaffinity.com)
Making Your Way Out Of The Swamp Of Denial
Making your way out of the swamp of denial or helping someone make his or her way out of the swamp of denial may have many causalities, yourself included. Too many people do not want to pay the price; but they have to pay the piper eventually. Seniors may put off making the adjustments they need to make in their chosen lifestyle as they get older and need more help. They are often not willing to face the consequences and often have put it off for way to long and it doesn’t get easier, it just gets harder and harder to do. Not taking personal responsibility for some of their life decisions as not working is something that gets in the way. They can get angry and because of their denial they take it out on the very people they need.
Denial is not conducive to rational thinking or to making an objective assessment of the consequences of choices people in denial might make is close to impossible. Seniors, especially, may have always thought, “I don’t want to think about that yet. It couldn’t happen to me. I like things just the way they are.” Honor thy father and mother is the commandment which gets harder and harder to obey. In fact these people may drive away the very people they need.
Now Is The Time That….
Such people in denial (like some seniors) often have had a position of status quo that was comfortable for them and which they never had to compromise. It is hard for these people to make the necessary adjustments when they never wanted to or had to before. At the same time their off spring or local support group runs out of patience with them because some seniors who are in denial won’t accept the help they have to offer and these seniors even get (sometimes) hateful with them.
God Bless you (friends and family) you may be in for a hard ride with no thanks or gratitude or cooperation for your effort. The problem may be impossible to solve if the person who needs to change is in the state of denial and stays there. You might even think you are going crazy. You say to yourself,”This can’t be real.” You think that no one would deny something like that when the handwriting is clearly on the wall.
Related articles
- Lying: False Denials Are Harder to Remember Than False Descriptions (spring.org.uk)
- The Importance Of Problem Solving! (myeverydaypsychology.com)
- Denial Is Not A River In Eygpt (myeverydaypsychology.com)
Guilt Holding You Back Or Making Things Worse?
Do you continually do things that you know deep down are wrong, but you can’t stop doing them because some part of you says that if you change your behavior you are admitting that you did something wrong in the first place? Take teasing for example, do you go on teasing somebody even after it is obvious that it makes them uncomfortable or even emotionally upset. Saying things to yourself like, “They shouldn’t be such a baby about things like that”, “They need to grow up: “It toughens them up”, “They should be able to take things like that in stride.” “It was just a joke” They took it too seriously” Doing things like that indicates a disrespect of others and deep down the person who does this doesn’t want to admit that they are wrong and thus in
Myllissa-Oscar the tabby cat teasing a baby-01 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
sensitive. Have you ever gone to far in pulling a joke or teasing somebody because even though you knew it was hurting them because you didn’t want to seem like a jackass? Are your feelings more important than those of the person you are teasing. We have all been guilty of that; I have. I once told a girl in front of some other girls that she looked like Bozo the Clown. Insensitive? Yes! Reflecting my own insecurities? True! At the time, I couldn’t see why it wasn’t funny. My only excuse is that I was only about ten years old at the time.
Related articles
- Don’t Let Bozo Get You Down! (therealnatesmith.com)
- …laugh at my mistakes (somedayidliketo.wordpress.com)
- Passing Judgment Versus Discernment (myeverydaypsychology.com)
- How We Think We Need To Climb On Other’s Backs To Get Ahead (myeverydaypsychology.com)
- The Power Of The Shadow Self (mutualspiritualaffinity.com)
Guilt And How It Sidetracks Forgiveness
Forgiveness Mandala by Wayne Stratz (Photo credit: Nutmeg Designs)
Did you ever think about how guilt sidetracks you and keeps you from forgiving yourself? Many people have difficulty forgiving themselves if they feel guilty about something. This can be a tremendous burden to bear and it prevents many people from letting go and moving on. Many people feel that in order to be forgiven that the slate must be wiped clean and the alleged transaction forgotten. If they can’t forgive themselves and forget, why should anybody else forgive them?
For some people to admit that they might have done something wrong destroys their self-esteem and makes them feel valueless. They are their own worst critics and to say that they did something wrong can be self-destructive. Having done a lot of psychotherapy in my life and having been in psychotherapy, the things that are the hardest to admit are the things that we can’t stop feeling guilty about. Often therapy reaches a stumbling block when one of these issues needs to be brought up.
Sometimes people admit that they secretly are their own worst critics. Then it follows that if they beat themselves up about something, that other people should tell them that what they did was not so bad after all. When this isn’t true, therapy often can’t move forwards. The pain of the self-remorse is so great that they feel that no one would ask them to take the next step forward and say that what they did, thought, or said was egregious. They think how can anybody love me if I did that if I can’t forgive and love myself?
What is worst is that sometimes in order unconsciously to prove that what they did was not that bad, they continue to do it. Thereby burying themselves deeper and deeper in the morass of guilt and self-blame. Take sexual harassment for example, the person involved can’t conceive of themself as a careless cad so they don’t change their behavior. It was just a joke or something that all girls ask for by their behavior or form of dress. They don’t realize that the buck stops with themselves no matter who the other person is or what the other person does. Anyway it is just their perception of the other person that they are responding to and it may actually be schewed.
There is no one here on earth (except Christ, who is here only in spirit, but not in the flesh like the rest of us) who is blameless and self-sacrificing. Mother Teresa admitted to faults and she was always working on them. I am sure Pope Francis would say something much the same.
The key to changing this behavior is forgiving yourself and once this is done the repetition compulsion loses it’s steam. This also makes it easier to forgive others when you realize that in some ways you are no different from them. In Christianity, God offers forgiveness for people’s sins but often people don’t accept it because that would involve admitting that they really did something wrong. Forgiveness is free; accepting it is personal choice.
Related articles
- Stretching The Limit On Forgiveness (mutualspiritualaffinity.com)
- Guilt and Our Mistakes (anchoredministry.wordpress.com)
- Self-Forgiveness (ibeefree.com)
- Have You Been on a Guilt Trip Lately? (work4christ.wordpress.com)
- Self-Blame and Forgiveness (teatimeandmetime.wordpress.com)
- Forgiveness…for yourself. (nourishment3.com)
Recent Comments