You hit Harry Flugleman on a bad day!
One of my favorite quotable movies is "Three Amigos." In that movie there is a scene wherein the Amigos go to studio head, Harry Flugleman and ask for a raise. To say the least, he gets a little out of sorts and he responds with today's title. I bring this up because, as it happens, today I am Harry Flugleman.
First, I decided today that I was tired of making continuous attempts to refuse a free hot tub. Let me explain. One day I was in a building I own and discovered someone had put a large hot tub inside. For weeks I tried to track down the owner. Finally I found him and he agreed to get it. A few months later it was still there and the new tenants wanted it gone. I hired some guys to move it out and again left the owner messages regarding my predicament (I think that was around the end of October). I have left this person several messages in the time since. Today, however, a thought hit me. I like hot tubs. Rarely have I used a hot tub and when through thought, "How terribly annoyed am I by what I just experienced!" So, in light of the countless efforts to help this person get theirs back despite months of free storage and my costs involved in moving it, I think I will use it until some resolution is reached. I was fed up with all of my efforts and will now merely soak while I wait. But that was only slightly Fluglmanish. There's more.
While home for lunch today I answered the door. It was a polite young mailman with a registered letter addressed to my lovely bride and calling for a return receipt. I signed his paperwork, and went inside to open the letter. Then realizing I had kept his pen I chased him down and returned it. Then I again went inside with Kendra and we opened her letter. It was a summons saying she had been sued over something that I had previously uncovered as a clerical error within city offices. There had never even been a violation or anything that could even be construed as one! It was merely an error within their system that took on a life of its own. Kendra has never committed an offense of any kind (except maybe a speeding ticket 10 years ago but this was completely unrelated). In fact, other than that little problem of marrying me, she is quite possibly perfect. So, suffice it to say, they hit Harry Flugleman on a bad day. Furthermore I called several city offices and the city attorney and told them so. I did not swear. I did not yell. I did not make personal attacks. I merely pointed out the mistakes in their system and further pointed out that it was not polite to send such threatening letters to upstanding citizens like my wife. Within a few phone calls I had people falling over themselves to apologize. I told them to address their letters of apology to Kendra and to make sure they used the good stationery. They hit me on the wrong day.
Later this afternoon I was still ready to rumble and I called to resolve a matter with PayPal that has been dragging on for months. They had frozen our account with them because of unauthorized attempts to use our account by someone overseas. While I appreciated the successful catch by their security measures, in so doing they had rendered my account useless. My repeated attempts to fix it were met by incompetent customer service and I had had my fill. I called again this afternoon and after 25 minutes on hold I got a representative. I explained to her that I was very annoyed with PayPal but not with her. It worked! She appreciated that I was polite with her and she fixed my problem almost immediately. Honey over vinegar can be awesome- even when you're Harry Flugleman.
This evening, I got home and downloaded an e-mail containing a personal attack on me based on erroneous second-hand accounts of something supposed to have occurred about five years ago. It is intriguing to get something like that, but especially so when the account is so full of holes and doesn't even hold up to basic logic, let alone opinions. Usually it is probably best to just say "Serenity now" and let it go. But not today. Today they hit Harry Flugleman... Well, you know the rest. I called the perpetrator and calmly confronted them, explaining that I thought this was the best approach- to discuss the matter calmly like caring adults. The interesting thing about situations like that is that people get angrier if you do not allow them to get you upset. Eventually, I saw that this person's problem was not with me, but was instead all a situation where I was a convenient diversion from another matter they wished would go away. At that point, I almost felt sorry for the other person and decided to drop it. I explained that it had become apparent that this situation would not be resolved and I would be available if they did want to pursue the matter further, but otherwise I would drop it, but wish them well. I am actually proud that I once again refrained from personal attacks and maintained a calm respectful manner, but really, by the end of the phone call my anger had turned more to pity and I just didn't have it in me.
I hope your day goes better than mine. But if it doesn't, and Harry comes for a visit, I'll try to steer clear.
First, I decided today that I was tired of making continuous attempts to refuse a free hot tub. Let me explain. One day I was in a building I own and discovered someone had put a large hot tub inside. For weeks I tried to track down the owner. Finally I found him and he agreed to get it. A few months later it was still there and the new tenants wanted it gone. I hired some guys to move it out and again left the owner messages regarding my predicament (I think that was around the end of October). I have left this person several messages in the time since. Today, however, a thought hit me. I like hot tubs. Rarely have I used a hot tub and when through thought, "How terribly annoyed am I by what I just experienced!" So, in light of the countless efforts to help this person get theirs back despite months of free storage and my costs involved in moving it, I think I will use it until some resolution is reached. I was fed up with all of my efforts and will now merely soak while I wait. But that was only slightly Fluglmanish. There's more.
While home for lunch today I answered the door. It was a polite young mailman with a registered letter addressed to my lovely bride and calling for a return receipt. I signed his paperwork, and went inside to open the letter. Then realizing I had kept his pen I chased him down and returned it. Then I again went inside with Kendra and we opened her letter. It was a summons saying she had been sued over something that I had previously uncovered as a clerical error within city offices. There had never even been a violation or anything that could even be construed as one! It was merely an error within their system that took on a life of its own. Kendra has never committed an offense of any kind (except maybe a speeding ticket 10 years ago but this was completely unrelated). In fact, other than that little problem of marrying me, she is quite possibly perfect. So, suffice it to say, they hit Harry Flugleman on a bad day. Furthermore I called several city offices and the city attorney and told them so. I did not swear. I did not yell. I did not make personal attacks. I merely pointed out the mistakes in their system and further pointed out that it was not polite to send such threatening letters to upstanding citizens like my wife. Within a few phone calls I had people falling over themselves to apologize. I told them to address their letters of apology to Kendra and to make sure they used the good stationery. They hit me on the wrong day.
Later this afternoon I was still ready to rumble and I called to resolve a matter with PayPal that has been dragging on for months. They had frozen our account with them because of unauthorized attempts to use our account by someone overseas. While I appreciated the successful catch by their security measures, in so doing they had rendered my account useless. My repeated attempts to fix it were met by incompetent customer service and I had had my fill. I called again this afternoon and after 25 minutes on hold I got a representative. I explained to her that I was very annoyed with PayPal but not with her. It worked! She appreciated that I was polite with her and she fixed my problem almost immediately. Honey over vinegar can be awesome- even when you're Harry Flugleman.
This evening, I got home and downloaded an e-mail containing a personal attack on me based on erroneous second-hand accounts of something supposed to have occurred about five years ago. It is intriguing to get something like that, but especially so when the account is so full of holes and doesn't even hold up to basic logic, let alone opinions. Usually it is probably best to just say "Serenity now" and let it go. But not today. Today they hit Harry Flugleman... Well, you know the rest. I called the perpetrator and calmly confronted them, explaining that I thought this was the best approach- to discuss the matter calmly like caring adults. The interesting thing about situations like that is that people get angrier if you do not allow them to get you upset. Eventually, I saw that this person's problem was not with me, but was instead all a situation where I was a convenient diversion from another matter they wished would go away. At that point, I almost felt sorry for the other person and decided to drop it. I explained that it had become apparent that this situation would not be resolved and I would be available if they did want to pursue the matter further, but otherwise I would drop it, but wish them well. I am actually proud that I once again refrained from personal attacks and maintained a calm respectful manner, but really, by the end of the phone call my anger had turned more to pity and I just didn't have it in me.
I hope your day goes better than mine. But if it doesn't, and Harry comes for a visit, I'll try to steer clear.
1 Comments:
I totally empathize with your day. I wish I had handled mine as peacefully as you. I really didn't go to personal attacks, but I wanted too! Like you said though, keeping calm feeds their anger even more when they are being irrational and yet if you never make the "normal" people feel defensive they are glad to help you. Thanks for sharing, I needed to hear this.
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