Let me tell you about my day.
This is a phrase that we all use to lead into a long, drawn out story about the horrible things that happened to us on any given day. This blog isn’t the case. But even though there is a point to this, let me tell you about my day and it will become clear why I’m taking time out to write this….
I woke up with two major things to do today–get my TV signal fixed, and get my heater fixed. I’d been waging a quiet, amicable war with Rogers for over a week to get television back into my house, and waking up to a house at 13 degrees Celsius isn’t a good thing. The appointment with Rogers had been set for some time between 11AM and 2PM. I e-mailed my landlord, who wrote back with his cell phone number. I called him, and he gave me the number of who to call to look after the furnace.
My wife and I got the kids to daycare around the major construction work happening around our house. Our daycare is a pleasant environment–we’ve taken time to get to know all the teachers and I even say hello to a lot of the kids there by name. We’ve been with this daycare for over 3 years (since my eldest started) and I’ve always walked out of there with a good feeling. We stopped at Tim Horton’s for our usual coffees, grabbed a few things at the grocery store, and came home.
12:30PM. My wife leaves for work, and I give Rogers a call yet as it’s half-time for the appointment window. I laughed with the agent, saying “yes, I’m being a paranoid customer, but the ticket hasn’t been closed “no access due to construction” again?” We determined it was still on, and of course, not too long after, the Rogers technician shows up. Young man, very thorough and friendly. He replaced old wiring with new wiring and got everything up and running.
So far it’s been an awesome day.
I popped by a neighbour/friend’s for some conversation when I got the phone call: Heating guy is at your front door. Another friendly guy, who made the usual comment about my antique gas furnace (“Most people don’t see how many decades they can make a furnace last”). He told me it might be difficult to replace a certain part on the furnace given its’ age, but he’d look for one and make his recommendation to my landlord. However, a few taps in the right places and the house has heat again, at least temporarily.
All this taken care of, I re-arrange my living room to accept new furniture, and look at the clock. 5PM–time to go pick up the kids from daycare.
I get the usual cheerful hellos from the teachers at my older son’s house, pick up him, get him dressed in his winter gear and proceed to the other nearby house where my toddler is. Closing time is 5:30PM, and I arrive just in the nick of time. I explain to the remaining teacher about having been late earlier in the week (I’ve been late a total of 3 times in 3 years), apologize again, and tell her I’m going to leave at 4:50PM on Monday to make sure. She wishes me a good weekend, package up my younger son….
A man walks up to me and starts the following conversation:
“Do you know what time it is? It’s 5:33!”
“And why are you telling me this, sir?”
“I’m picking up my wife from work, and you’re late!”
“It was 5:30PM when I arrived and it’s 5:33PM now, sir. I’ve already apologized to [name withheld] twice for being late earlier this week.”
“Well, apologizes don’t mean anything. You pick up your kids at 4:30, you hear?”
“Sir, I don’t like being late any more than you like me being late.”
He made an agressive step toward me. “What did you say?”
“I said, I hate being late to get my kids any more than you do.”
“Well, pick up your kids at 4:30!”
This guy’s wife was on her way out the door when I said “I’ll make sure to pick up my children whenever you wish, sir. My sincerest apologies.”
And I walked away.
A-ha, you say, we’re getting close to the point of this writing. As people out in public society, we pay very little attention to the reality of things, or consider the effect on the other person in such a way as to avoid situations like this. I am certainly not the kind of person to cause a scene, but I’ve learned a few things along the way.
It only took one short yelling conversation to steal my great mood and turn it into a crappy one. Sound like a hippie-movement kind of slogan? On one level, perhaps, yes. But what does yelling really accomplish?
I used to be a tech support agent for Verizon in the U.S., so I know what it’s like to be indiscriminately yelled at. But what it ultimately accomplished is this–you get hung up on, or worse–you get an agent that rather than hang up will report you to abuse agencies. or at least you get shitty help rather than good help. It’s the same all around–this guy’s wife, for example, is an excellent child care teacher, and a nice woman. Now I have to talk to her about this incident on Monday. Suddenly I have less patience for my children.
Let me generalize more–I think we’re all far too tense. We have to get from A to B faster than a Formula One race car, all of our technology has to be functioning perfectly, we have to have our smoke and coffee (unless you don’t do one or both of these things), we have to, have to, have to, as fast as we possibly can. This results in a society that when someone slows us down for 10 seconds, we give them the finger. If our Internet is down, we call up and yell at the first agent we speak to regardless of their ability to fix the problem. Lineup at Tim Horton’s taking too long? Well, let’s just bitch at the counter person and, if we want to be real assholes, we ask to speak to a manager and ream them out, too. You have been one or more of these people, and you know it. You have also been on the receiving end of it, hands down. You can’t deny this.
The solution is golden-rule simple. Think of the last time you got dressed down by someone you didn’t know. Took a while to get your happy back, didn’t it? And remember yelling at that phone agent about lack of service only to find out a few days later that your appointment was never booked?
Relax. You have other stuff you can do besides go online, and anyway, it’s not this person’s fault. That’s right, folks–someone stuck in a room behind a computer you will never speak to or see made the mistake. The person you have on the phone didn’t cause the problems, so yes, say you’re angry, but keep the voice calm and don’t become argumentative. Explain the problem politely, and you’ll be surprised when that technician comes out the very next day to fix your problem. And when the technician comes out, don’t get on his case, either. He wasn’t the one who aged the wires in your house 30 years or caused the short in the motor of your washing machine. He may represent the company, but he isn’t responsible for the company’s mistake. You’ll be surprised how much more people will do for you when you say “I’m angry with the treatment I’ve received from <your company> and this is why”.
What’s more important, I think, is just how contagious this tension disease is becoming. People honking their horns or giving the finger on the road, rude comments in response to a pleasant greeting from a stranger on the street, yelling at every single person we get on the phone whenever something goes wrong…..wow. What we need to do is check and balance these reactions and say “Is it really worth getting bent out of shape over? Is it worth ruining this person’s day, or mine by getting all pissed off about it?” Thinking before we react might solve a lot of problems, car accidents and bad moods.
Look at what happened when this guy started yelling at me. A phenomenal day turned into a miserable day with one 2 minute conversation, when aforementioned day care teacher mentioned it to me this week. And even if I’m in a bad mood, I don’t think other people deserve to have that good mood ripped away from them.
Maybe it’s think before you react. I don’t know. You’re too tense–here, let me help you relax a little…..

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