I don’t know enough about South Africa to comment on this.
I think I know the difference between “your” and “you’re.”
I’ve been here for a total of five seconds and I already have a short list of things I love and things I hate.
Things I Love
Things I Hate
In general, Nashville is rocking. I miss my friends and I miss NYC, but I’m trying to focus on this new, exciting adventure in a new place.
It’s my birthday. Yay, me. But now I am very angry. Let me tell you why. *DEEP BREATH*
For my birthday and my move, I decided to fly Mr. Zbornak He-Who-Has-Yet-To-Be-Named to NYC. So, I went to Expedia and bought a ticket on US Airways. He was supposed to arrive this morning at 7:43. I then arranged to have a car pick him up and bring him to my apartment. Fancy, right?
I have a lot of sympathy for airlines. The craziest, rudest, most impatient, most obnoxious people in the world get on airplanes every day along with everyone else. Airlines have to balance not only the very reasonable concerns of their other passengers, but they have to contend with those maniacs, federal regulations, and the weather. It’s no easy job. I understand and I am usually a patient, kind, gentle customer as a result.
But as a customer I expect a basic level of service and respect.
Well, unfortunately, his plane broke down this morning. They sat in the plane for nearly an hour before they were let off. US Airways tried to arrange another plane, but they failed. So, they started trying to get people on other flights and they even chartered a bus to get people to NYC.
Unfortunately, I have to pay for the car and driver even if he doesn’t show up.
So, I called US Airways in hopes of getting some sort of refund or comp or something due to the hassle and expense that their failure has cost me. Did I mention it’s my birthday? Yeah, this is all unfolding while I type this.
So, I reached a customer service lady and our conversation went a little like this:
Her: How may I help you?
Me: Yes, I’m calling for a refund or something because a flight I booked was cancelled due to some sort of mechanical problem.
Her: What’s your last name?
Me: My last name or the passenger’s last name? I bought this for a friend.
Her: (annoyed) OK. Sir. I need the passenger’s last name.
Me: OK. The passenger’s last name is Zbornak.
Her: Let’s seeee… Yes, here it is. Hmmm… Well, I don’t know why you would call for a refund on a non-refundable, non-transferable ticket, but let me see what I can find.
Me: (annoyed) You don’t have to give me a refund. I’m calling because in addition to the hassle and inconvenience US Airways has caused me, you’ve also cost me $XXX for a car and driver I had arranged and the failure was mechanical. So, I am calling for some sort of restitution here.
Her: (Ignoring me and adopting a condescending tone) Uh huh, so, is he still going to DC?
Me: He was never going to DC. He’s coming to New York. Right now he’s waiting for a bus.
Her: But this says he’s going from San Francisco to Philly to DC to New York.
Me: No, he’s going San Francisco to Philly to New York. And right now he’s grounded in Philly waiting on a bus.
Her: (very annoyed) So, is he using the second half of the trip?
Me: He wants to, but your plane is broken and now the second half of the trip is a mess. That’s what I’m calling you to make right for me.
Her: (condescending) OK. Well, I can’t do anything for you. Customer Service handles…
Let me stop there. The rest of the conversation was her continuing to be condescending, annoyed, and just an all-around bitch trying to pass the buck to someone else and blame me for the problem. I just agreed to call back later once they’ve managed to get him to NYC and stopped screwing everything up.
Newsflash: if you talk to customers YOU are customer service.
Also, you stupid, unmitigated afterbirth of troll, I called you because that’s what the US Airways website instructed me to do for a refund. So, stop treating me like an idiot for not properly navigating the phone maze and bureaucracy of US Airways.
So, apparently, they think he is both flying to DC and taking this charter bus at the same time. Right now he’s waiting for his bags at baggage claim so he can get on the bus. We can only hope his bags didn’t get put on that plane to DC.
Once I’ve calmed down and can refrain from leveling all the new curse words I learned during my time in NYC I’m going to call back and see if they can refrain from annoying me further.
I’m fine except now I’m really embarrassed about having given so away so much free fellatio.
NEXT YEAR, SOMEONE WILL PAY DEARLY!
The arguments about “activist judges” isn’t something I would disregard out of hand.
I mean, we have a constitution which was written with Enlightenment principles in mind. Principles such as one’s right to one’s conscience and right to one’s property; individual rights.
But the people who so frequently complain about “activist judges” are also people who argue that we should have “rule of law” and that we should refer to the Constitution of the US to make decisions.
What I find so ironic about that line of argumentation is that while they argue against “activist judges” they also argue that America is a “Christian Nation” and that we should refer to the Bible as some sort of supplemental materials for our laws.
Basically, these people what to have their cake and eat it, too.
But I’m not particularly ired by their complaints. Liberals and Conservatives both argue for interpreting the Constitution in their favor and they use lots of non-rational arguments to that end. What I find galling is that so few of them argue that way because they’ve stopped even for a second to ask: What is the best form of government for human beings?
Basically, I see the whole discussion as a lot of argument from authority/tradition/mob. And I remain unimpressed.
Mark Wickens sent this article out to OHomos yesterday. It’s a brief post by the National Organization for Marriage (NOM) president, Maggie Gallagher, on Ayn Rand’s view of sex. It’s on the National Review, so gird your loins.
I’ll let you read it on your own, but I want to call out two remarks she made:
Ayn Rand’s “depiction of sex is anything but a “release of biological desire” between sexually marketable equals.”
and
“It has never been quite clear to me why in Rand’s world the most desirable men don’t sleep with other achieving men (even though Rand would be appalled by the idea)”
The first statement seems innocuous and accurate enough on the surface, I guess. My understanding of Objectivism and the power of my own eyes, though, leads me to be confused about Gallagher’s apparent disagreement with that view.
The phrase “sexually marketable equals” is confusing, but I want to point something out to you that make shock and disturb you. (I was shocked and disturbed when I found out.) Please take a seat if you are not already so positioned.
Ready?
Ok. So: Men have penises and women have vaginas. And by “vagina” I mean that they don’t have penises. Also, women have squishy parts affixed to their torso called “breasts” and those organs are usually very apparent when you observe them next to males.
These facts and others less apparent lead me to this conclusion: Men and Women are not sexually interchangeable creatures. I know that if you swapped my beau’s brain into a woman’s body I would be quite upset and I would not be inclined to have sex with him. I feel confident that Ms. Gallagher would agree with me here.
So, Ayn Rand was unmistakably clear about the roles of men and women in sex and, consonant with the physical reality that is the difference between men and women, those roles are different but compatible. Ms. Gallagher’s summary of those roles is reasonably good for a non-Objectivist, I think.
I also think that in this Post Brown vs. The Board of Education world, it is easy to understand why she would leap to the conclusion that Rand’s view of men and women are not “equal” given the fact that Ayn Rand insists on pointing out that they are different from one another.
But if you ask me whether or not I like men or women more, sexually, I will consistently tell you that I like men. Does that not state clearly that I think men are more valuable than women in a sexual context? I sure hope it does. I don’t think it would help anyone to be confused on that point. Maggie is a straight woman, so she must hold similar values.
Holding those values and understanding the source of those values is not a claim to any objective superiority, though. Rand didn’t think women were sexually inferior to men. She thought they were sexually compatible with (straight) men by virtue of their physical nature as women.
So, the underlying premise that the hateful, mistaken, and rude Ms. Gallagher is operating under is that of an inapt sexual egalitarianism.
That leads me to her second comment.
When I first discovered Ayn Rand’s work, I was also confused about why the men in her books didn’t have sex with other men because they were so amazing and handsome and strong and smart and cool and everything good.
Well, the reason is simple: they’re men.
Dagny Taggart in Atlas Shrugged is NOT “just, you know, a pretty competent railroad executive — for a woman.” The novel is eleventy million pages of examples of how Dagny Taggart is the most competent railroad executive in existence. There is no railroad executive in the book better than her. Sure, she has equals as a businessperson in other industries, but when it comes to running a railroad there is not a man alive in Atlas Shrugged who could hold a candle to her.
Also, Dagny Taggart is smart. She’s smarter and more mentally capable than a good number of the men in the book. I’d say the only man in the book who could be argued to be smarter than she is is John Galt, actually. She seems clearly on par with D’Anconia and Rearden in the brains department.
Ayn Rand took care to show us Dagny in a number of contexts. She talks to scientists. She talks to presidents. She works with other business executives. She talks to composers. She flies a damn plane into the mountains by herself! She does all kinds of things that show that Dagny Taggart is as good, if not better, than most of the men you see in the novel.
But she is a woman. And there is only one context in which her being a woman has any direct importance: sex.
Rand’s view of men and women in sex is perhaps not readily apparent to the modern eye. If you hold that men and women are inherently equal, they’re also infinitely interchangeable in every single way, then you certainly will not be able to comprehend why Rand didn’t have Rearden and D’Anconia in a sweaty, rough-and-tumble embrace, each struggling to overpower the other by taking him to ever higher levels of pleasure until one of them submits and loses himself completely to the erotic prowess of his partner and becomes the quivering, panting instrument of his satisfaction– even though I TOTALLY wanted that to happen, like, several times.
That’s where the contradiction in Gallagher’s view is. On one hand, she scorns Rand for pointing out that men and women are different biologically and that means they hold different sexual values because, in Gallagher’s eyes, that means that men are superior to women and we ought to see men and women as undifferentiated equals in sex as well as other contexts. But on the other hand she argues that men and women are not interchangeable — which is what we would necessarily conclude if we held that men and women were undifferentiated equals — when it comes to sex. Why? Because, according to Gallagher, they’re different biologically and that should mean they hold different values sexually and that’s why men should only marry women.
The problem with Gallagher’s view — and that of so many others today — is that there is some sort of inability to differentiate between the relevant facts in particular contexts. When it comes to sex, the difference between men and women are really, really important. Elsewhere, those differences are not important at all even if they do affect how the individual behaves within those contexts. But Gallagher doesn’t seem to know why and rejects Rand’s explanation out of hand because it doesn’t jive with her view of men and woman in other contexts, like business.
Gallagher is also rabidly, ignorantly, hatefully, and stupidly opposed to gay marriage. Why? Because contrary to her views on “equality in sexual marketing” (Seriously, what does that even mean?) she contends that marriage should only be between a man and a woman.
There’s an ironic inversion there. When it comes to sex, Gallagher seems to want to say that men and women are equals, but when it comes to politics, marriage as seen by the government, she vehemently holds that men and women are not equals.
Note: Gallagher is certainly aware of the physical differences between men and women, but she refuses to draw any conclusions about how those concrete differences might affect behavior and sexual values. So, I’m forced to say that she sees men and women as equals but since she offers no indication of what it means in reality to be “equal” it remains a bland, meaningless concept in her use of the term. If she did offer up any such indications, it would draw her closer toward Rand’s view of men and women in sex. My use of the term “equal” in the second part of the above statement refers to civil rights and recognition by the government in defense of their individual rights.
If men and women were equal in the eyes of the government — where the concrete difference between their sexes are irrelevant — then they would be able to marry either other men or other women as they may so choose.
That’s the beauty of Rand’s view. Ayn Rand held that men and women are equals in every way — in sex they are different, but complementary elements to one another in very particular ways, but still “equal” in the metaphysical sense of the term. Therefore, Rand also held that they should be equals in the eyes of the law, each having the same rights and are entitled to the same level of defense from the government. She held that for both gay and straight people as well.
Maggie Gallagher, unfortunately, is confused and, as a result, sexist.
From Joe.My.God
I love Larry King’s apparently genuine confusion over gay people who would promote anti-gay stuff. Bless his heart. He’s like a baby porcupine playing with a new balloon.
PS For those who don’t understand the significance, Ken Mehlman came out of the closet today.
Update: I forgot to link over to Joe. It should also be noted: this clip is from 2006.
Tough question. So much is determined by context here, so I can’t tell you one sure-fire way to deal with these situations.
I once had a customer call one of my employees, leave a voicemail in which he cursed up a blue streak over some relatively minor issue. I directed my employee not to return his call and contacted his account manager. I explained the situation to the account manager and related his behavior and explained that we would not be in contact with that particular individual until we had received assurances that all would observe professional conduct. That fellow called back later, apologized, and explained his situation, which was very stressful and we happily made him out to be a hero in the end.
The option of delivering such ultimatums is very rare. most frequently unprofessional behavior is difficult to quantify, undocumented, and has to be dealt with in such a way as to maintain and improve the relationship with the offender.
While I haven’t spent a lot of time considering these situations in my short career, I do have a couple of recommendations.
1) Just listen
A lot of times when someone is on a tear about something that makes them unhappy, the best thing you can do is just listen. Let them go on and on as they see fit. If a comment is demanded of you, use “reflective listening techniques” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reflective_listening) to show that you understand where they’re coming from. (Word of caution: be subtle about this. If you are too obvious about it, you can inspire a level of rage you’ve perhaps never known before.) and commiserate with the speaker.
Interestingly, women are better at this than men. Women have a strong tendency to relate to the person with whom their speaking, while men have a tendency to focus on offering up solutions. If you — man or woman — find yourself tempted to offer up a solution, please stop and think carefully. Offering a solution where the speaker is looking for commiseration can be a fatal misstep. Ask your girlfriend.
2) The Meta-Conversation
In some contexts, you can separate the issue from the conversation. You can say, “You know, I really didn’t like how you came to me with this situation. You were angry and you cursed at me. I felt that was unprofessional and it distracted me from finding solutions from you.”
This is a VERY tricky approach. I saw one of my employees impressively employ this approach on a client once recently. I’m still not sure how she pulled it off, but it was a stroke of genius. Somehow, she managed to change the conversation from “this situation” to “this broad-overarching-issue-and-how-we-deal-with-it-together.”
I can’t really tell you how she did it because it was so entrenched with the relationship with the customer and the situation, but it was most very subtle and MOST excellent. Seriously, it was amazing.
Basically, she managed to get the client to stop and think about what the general problem was. It clearly wasn’t this particular situation, but a set of situations with a common theme. She got the client to think about the question, “What was the common theme?”
3) What’s your goal?
I understand that I am sometimes more aggressive than some people prefer. I would just rather than people get things out in the air, address it, and then move on. This disposition has not been helped by my time in NYC where yelling at people and forgetting about it is de rigueur.
I advise my employees to keep in mind their goal with a particular conversation. This goes for professional as well as personal conversations.
Sometimes it’s legitimate to have as your goal a simple airing of grievances. But sometimes your goal is to get your audience to agree with you. Sometimes you just want them to agree with a fee or an objective.
I once said to a customer, “You know, we’re never going to agree on this. You have a particular view of events that I understand and can sympathize with, but I have another view which is supported my documentation which you approved. And even if you don’t think that documentation is right, I can’t possibly go back to my team and tell them how they were wrong because everything I see says they were right. We should look to the future. How can we fix this and how can we avoid it for the future.”
Depending on your goal, you have to modify your approach. If your goal is to get them to sign a work order or agree to a new price for a project, it’s probably not a good plan to argue with them and present all the reasons you think they suck.
It’s tough to let it go when someone else is unprofessional because it so often seems like a matter of justice. When you’re working with internal stakeholders your opportunities are greater than they are with clients. But in any case you have to select the right time and place to confront that behavior.
I find that instead of addressing a specific incident, it is better to wait a moment until that situation as passed and then present some guiding principles. “These are the things we like!” “These are the things we really do NOT like.” “This is what we think you like!” “This is what we think you do NOT like.” In general, if someone can participate in outlining those policies practices, they will be more inclined to endorse them going forward.
So, those are three tips that I would offer, in general, for dealing with difficult people at work. I do think you have to carefully study each situation, though. There just isn’t a tactic that will work in all cases.
But I will tell you this: The good clients make it completely worth it. I have one client in particular who is honest, just, and frank. He regards justice and honesty as virtues and even when his position isn’t completely rational, he is usually willing to accept a well presented argument to the contrary and consider it in context. It makes dealing with him not only tolerable but one of the great highlights of my day.
So, work at it and see if you can coax the virtue out of a business partner. It’s well worth it.
PS. Don’t forget to work on your own virtues. It’s possible YOU’RE the crazy one in a difficult conversation!
Things have been wicked busy for me lately. I’ve got this new fella thing going on and my job has presented me with a huge new opportunity that requires that I move nearly 900 miles away. Never mind the fact that my job even as it stands today has been superbizzy of late. Everything is just piling up like crazy!
So, what’s happened so far?
Well, this past week, I was fortunate to be able to spend a little time in Nashville. I saw some of the city and I looked at several apartment complexes. I am very happy to say that I found a very nice apartment complex in a good neighborhood, close to work, and well within my price range. It has two bedrooms and two bathrooms. If I should be possessed by the devil and decide I want to start doing my own laundry, there are washer and dryer hook ups. The kitchen is really nice and even has a dishwasher and a garbage disposal and lots and lots of counter space. The closets are HUGE. (I’m pretty sure if the closets had windows they would try to call them studio apartments here in NYC.)
I’m pretty stoked about it.
Also, whilst in Nashville, the new fella (Any suggestions about a sobriquet for this one?) was in the area and we were able to spend the weekend together. It was so much fun. We had an ossum time.
But it also underscored for me how much I’m missing out by virtue of the simple fact that we live 3,000 miles apart. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not second guessing the relationship itself. It’s just that I spend so much of my time with him simply on the phone or looking at a jumpy webcam view of him. When we’re together in person, I feel shocked into silence over just seeing him and getting to spend time joking around, talking about art or philosophy or movies or music or television. I feel like I didn’t say everything I want to say. I didn’t get to show him all the things I wanted to show him. As soon as I kissed him goodbye at his gate in the airport I wanted to call him to tell him about things I was seeing and thinking.
It “sucks” that he reads this blog sometimes (and I showed him how to use Google Reader this weekend, so now he’s following me) and I can’t just tell you ALL the crazy stuff I think about him — like how he vaguely resembles a chimpanzee sometimes when he smiles real big. (Don’t tell him I said that.) And about how much I love that he tolerates me singing in the car — I am nearly tone deaf — along with Top 40’s radio hits — as if I didn’t notice how many times this weekend he pointed out how obnoxious those songs are. And about how he tested me and noticed exactly how bad I am at recognizing faces, which is an embarrassing level of bad.
But whatevs. He’s sweetie and we have a stupid amount of fun together.
His brain amazes me. In one moment we’re talking about unicorns and Britney Spears and then next moment we’re talking about something called the Principle of Explosion and riddles about coins. He listens to me rave on about how a painting in a restaurant is both an impressive display for a young artist and a disgusting conjunction of “Hopperesque use of lighting,” “Cezannesque perspective,” and “Lichtensteinian pop-art influences.” AND he seems to be impressed with that identification if nothing else.
He’s coming to help me move in a couple of weeks. I’m excited about that. I’m excited about moving. I’m excited about seeing him. I’m excited about moving and him being with me to help out. I’m just excited.
I’m excited about the opportunity my job is presenting me right now. Things are in a state of transition and it could fall out in any number of directions. I’m pretty sure I know how it will go, but there’s a lot of work to be done to make sure that’s the case. And on top of that, there’s a lot of work to make sure I achieve what I intend to achieve while I’m in Nashville. It’s going to be tough. Really tough. But I’m looking forward to it because I am pretty sure I will be granted a fairly significant amount of latitude to make things happen. And if they do happen, I have a lot to gain.
I’m sorry for all the vague language here, but I can’t disclose much. I can’t disclose because I have clients who follow me and I have co-workers who follow me. So, suffice it to say that I am optimistic about the way things are going to play out, but I also know that it’s not an easy row to plow. (I’m so gonna rock this.)
