Once again, Robert Bruce knocks it out of the freakin’ park
Robert Bruce | American Poet | The Irrelevance Of Relevance:
Our concerns
and desperate needs
are beyond what your
product or service
can solve
(Via Knife Gun Pen.)
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knife gun pen, robert bruce, irrelevance of relevance
100 Words Every High School Graduate Should Know:
“100 Words That All High School Graduates —
And Their Parents — Should KnowBOSTON, MA —
The editors of the American Heritage® dictionaries have compiled a list
of 100 words they recommend every high school graduate should know.”
Here’s a list of all 100, with links to Dictionary.com
abjure
abrogate
abstemious
acumen
antebellum
auspicious
belie
bellicose
bowdlerize
chicanery
chromosome
churlish
circumlocution
circumnavigate
deciduous
deleterious
diffident
enervate
enfranchise
epiphany
equinox
euro
evanescent
expurgate
facetious
fatuous
feckless
fiduciary
filibuster
gamete
gauche
gerrymander
hegemony
hemoglobin
homogeneous
hubris
hypotenuse
impeach
incognito
incontrovertible
inculcate
infrastructure
interpolate
irony
jejune
kinetic
kowtow
laissez faire
lexicon
loquacious
lugubrious
metamorphosis
mitosis
moiety
nanotechnology
nihilism
nomenclature
nonsectarian
notarize
obsequious
oligarchy
omnipotent
orthography
oxidize
parabola
paradigm
parameter
pecuniary
photosynthesis
plagiarize
plasma
polymer
precipitous
quasar
quotidian
recapitulate
reciprocal
reparation
respiration
sanguine
soliloquy
subjugate
suffragist
supercilious
tautology
taxonomy
tectonic
tempestuous
thermodynamics
totalitarian
unctuous
usurp
vacuous
vehement
vortex
winnow
wrought
xenophobe
yeoman
ziggurat
(Via Houghton Mifflin.)
Bill Weinman · Why I Keep The Boulder Pledge:
“The Boulder Pledge
‘Under no circumstances will I ever purchase anything offered to me as the result of an unsolicited e-mail message. Nor will I forward chain letters, petitions, mass mailings, or virus warnings to large numbers of others. This is my contribution to the survival of the online community.’
— Roger Ebert, December, 1996″
(Via BW.org.)
I know, not the most SEO friendly title, but it’ll do.
was listening to William Ury’s The Power of a Positive No
and heard his linking Kubler-Ross’ 5 stages of grief to
reaction phases when a someone hears a no
(in any form) from you.
His version includes 6, which (in no particular order) are:
All this to say this -
in the last few days I’ve been surprised
how much denial I see in my customers’ responses.
The first is denying recognition of the no ever being said.
Second is denying that the no applies to them.
Third is denying any recollection of previous conversations,
save for selectively remembered (and/or distorted) snippets
which emphasize the original denial of the no.
If I persist in my no, I may encounter anxiety -
which is expressed in one of two ways:
Whining (both men and women) -
The tactic here is to force compliance by annoyance -
it worked with Mommy and Daddy, so it has to work here, right?
HFOW (hysterical flow of words) - (mostly women, some men) -
The tactic here is the emotional version of the Powell Doctrine -
use overwhelming emotional force and unrelenting verbiage to
brute force the target into compliance.
If I press further I might get anger,
but I usually get the classic “I want to talk to your manager” line
by this time (if I don’t suggest involving him myself).
The tactic here is pulling rank - a pure status play,
especially in a rank-conscious environment
where a customer sees
themself as having a rank advantage,
either by the sole virtue of being a Customer
or by some other external token of status.
The Bargaining stage is usually an alternative second response,
replacing anxiety (or preceding it).
The tactic here is, again, to wear down by repetition of questions,
most of them trivial and/or nitpicking.
Answers reinforcing a no are conveniently
not understood and/or forgotten.
The Depression stage can emerge at any time,
as it is primarily concerned with inducing Guilt.
The tactic here is to elicit sympathy (and compliance)
instead of empathy (and a respectful, yet understanding No).
Acceptance (grudging or otherwise) is the goal -
as both parties end the transaction accepting the outcome.
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Elizabeth Kubler-Ross,
difficult customer,
customer service,
William Ury,
retail hell