Following Simple Directions
Mamacita says: Back when I taught sixth grade – and y’all will find this hard to believe – there were times when it was really difficult to get those kids to follow even the simplest of directions. Verbal directions. . . written directions. . . it didn’t much matter because so many of them were off in LaLa Land thinking about Harry Potter and basketball and hormones and revenge and retrospection and napping (just like we do, actually) that following the directions some old broad gave them just wasn’t all that important.
Being me, I wanted to teach them a valuable lesson, so I constructed this little beauty:
==
TEST: Following Directions – Must be filled out in ink. Use a PEN, not a pencil. If you do not have a pen, come and get one from the basket on my desk. PEN, not pencil. INK PEN.
Do not mark on this paper until you have read it through to the very end. Not a single mark until you’ve read it all. NO MARKS until you’ve read it all. You have been warned, so no whining later. Again, DO NOT MARK ON THIS PAPER UNTIL YOU HAVE READ IT THROUGH TO THE VERY END!!! If you do not understand these directions, please raise your hand NOW.
One more time: Do not mark on this paper until you have read it through to the end.
Okay, you may begin: Enjoy!
1. What is your name? __________________________
2. Which kind of small school reward do you prefer: candy or pencil? ______________
3. What is your favorite color? ______________________
4. What color are your eyes? _______________________
5. Do you like to ride a bike? (yes or no) ________
6. What is your favorite meal of all time?
7. Do you have a pet? If so, what is its name? If not, would you like to have one?
8. What is your favorite part of school?
9. What is the best cafeteria food item here?
10. Do you daydream a lot when you should be working?
11. What part of the school day do you like least?
12. Now, go back to numbers 1 and 2, and answer them. Leave the rest of this paper blank. If you followed the directions, come to the front of the room and choose your reward. If you did not follow the directions, too bad. Next time, maybe you will.
==
I had a lot of angry 6th graders that day. That night, I had a lot of angry phone calls. My big question was, why? I think those directions were more than clear, and the kids who disregarded them should not have had any kind of viable complaint. I considered sixth graders to be plenty mature enough to read and follow simple directions.
After that day, however, I will have to say that MOST of the time, MOST of the students read the directions very carefully, and discovered any tricks and traps in time to not fall into them, yes, even when their mean crabby teacher hid changes in the middle of the test.
I did not want any of my children to be the kind of adults who are taken in by craftily-worded instructions on real-life papers. No insurance salesman or used-car salesman or doctor or lawyer or repairman or hospital or lawn-care company would be able to fool any of MY students, by golly.
Sigh.
And yet, I had to promise never to do such a thing again, and I had to give EVERY student something out of the rewards drawer the next day, because I’d injured their self-esteem so badly.
When the genuinely winning students asked me why, I had no answer. I still don’t. I told them that someone had complained, and I’d been ordered to pay up. A few of the students laughed. Most of them did not. It might be easy to fool some adults, but our kids are a lot smarter than that. They know who earned a reward and who did not.
If anyone can tell me why administration would cave like that to the complaints of a handful of parents of students who didn’t follow the directions that day, I’d love to hear your reasoning.
Me, I’ve got nothing.
Quotation Saturday: Business and Customer Service
Mamacita says: I”m feeling pretty jaded lately about many things, but I still believe that if everyone in the world would just buck up, show some spunk, and do the right thing no matter how they may feel and what they might want, the whole universe would right itself. Right and wrong do not depend on our moods or feelings or desires; right and wrong depend on doing what is right or wrong, whether we like it or not. Do wrong, and you might feel great right now and for a while; do right, and you might feel miserable right now but ultimately you’ll be glad you chose the higher ground. Whether we choose to do right or choose to do right, let’s try to remember that either is a CHOICE, and that whichever we choose, we take a lot of people along with us for the ride, whether they want to go or not.
This holds true for individuals, for couples, for families, for businesses. . . for all of us. No exceptions. Not even for David Letterman.
Today, let’s talk about business and customer service. No particular reason.
1. If you make customers unhappy in the physical world, they might each tell 6 friends.
If you make customers unhappy on the Internet, they can each tell 6,000 friends. — Jeff Bezos
2. Customers don’t expect you to be perfect, but they do expect you to fix things when they go wrong. — Donald Porter
3. The goal as a company is to have customer service that is not just the best, but legendary. — Sam Walton
4. Being on par in terms of price and quality only gets you into the game. Service wins the game. — Tony Alessandra
5. Here is a simple but powerful rule – always give people more than what they expect to get. — Nelson Boswell
6. In business you get what you want by giving other people what they want. — Alice Macdougall
7. If you don’t have integrity, you have nothing. You can’t buy it. You can have all the money in the world, but if you are not a moral and ethical person, you really have nothing.
— Henry Kravis
8. We don’t think of ourselves as do-gooders or altruists. It’s just that somehow we’re trying our best to be run with some sense of moral compass even in a business environment that is growing. — Craig Newmark
9. You’ll never have a product or price advantage again. They can be easily duplicated, but a strong customer service culture can’t be copied. — Jerry Fritz
10. Although your customers won’t love you if you give bad service, your competitors will. — Kate Zabriskie
11. There are no traffic jams along the extra mile. — Roger Staubach
12. As far as customers are concerned you are the company. This is not a burden, but the core of your job. You hold in your hands the power to keep customers coming back – perhaps even to make or break the company. — Unknown
13. A customer is the most important visitor on our premises. He is not dependent on us – we are dependent on him. — Unknown
14. In the end, the customer doesn’t know, or care, if you are small or large as an organisation.. she or he only focuses on the garment hanging on the rail in the store.
— Giorgio Armani
15. Be everywhere, do everything, and never fail to astonish the customer. — Macy’s Motto
16. Customer complaints are the schoolbooks from which we learn. — Unknown
17. Customers who don’t get support become someone else’s customers. — Brigade Ad
18. Every great business is built on friendship. — JC Penney
19. I won’t complain. I just won’t come back. — Brown & Williamson
20. If you do build a great experience, customers tell each other about that. Word of mouth is very powerful. — Jeff Bezos
21. If Franz Kafka were alive today he’d be writing about customer service. — Jonathan Alter
22. If you don’t understand that you work for your mislabeled subordinates, then you know nothing of leadership. You know only tyranny. — Dee Hock
23. Make your product easier to buy than your competition, or you will find your customers buying from them, not you. — Mark Cuban
24. In the world of Internet Customer Service, it’s important to remember your competitor is only one mouse click away. — Doug Warner
25. Suppliers and especially manufacturers have market power because they have information about a product or a service that the customer does not and cannot have, and does not need if he can trust the brand. This explains the profitability of brands.
— Peter Drucker
26. Never underestimate the power of the irate customer. — Joel Ross
27. Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning. — Bill Gates
28. Organizations have more to fear from lack of quality internal customer service than from any level of external customer service. — Ron Tillotson
29. When people talk about successful retailers and those that are not so successful, the customer determines at the end of the day who is successful and for what reason.
— Gerry Harvey
30. People don’t want to communicate with an organization or a computer. They want to talk to a real, live, responsive, responsible person who will listen and help them get satisfaction. — Theo Michelson
31. This may seem simple, but you need to give customers what they want, not what you think they want. And, if you do this, people will keep coming back. — John Ilhan
32. With businesses, you go to the same places because you like the service, you like the people and they take care of you. They greet you with a smile. That’s how people want to be treated, with respect. That’s what I tell my employees.. customer service is very important. — Magic Johnson
33. Spend a lot of time talking to customers face to face. You’d be amazed how many companies don’t listen to their customers. — Ross Perot
34. The longer you wait, the harder it is to produce outstanding customer service.
— William H. Davidow
35. The purpose of a business is to create a mutually beneficial relationship between itself and those that it serves. When it does that well, it will be around tomorrow to do it some more. — John Woods
36. The single most important thing to remember about any enterprise is that there are no results inside its walls. The result of a business is a satisfied customer. — Peter Drucker
37. There is only one boss. The customer. And he can fire everybody in the company from the chairman on down, simply by spending his money somewhere else. –Sam Walton
38. Washrooms will always tell if your company cares about its customers. — Unknown
39. When you start viewing your customers as interruptions, you’re going to have problems. — Kate Zabriskie
40. One customer, well taken care of, could be more valuable than $10,000 worth of advertising. — Jim Rohn
And don’t forget that the customer isn’t always right; sometimes, the customer is just stupid.
Nothing Made By Pentax For Me, Thanks Anyway. Not Ever.
Something really weird happened tonight.
Everybody probably knows by now that I’m crazy about cameras, digital picture frames, computers, and pretty much anything in the electronics area. I’d rather look at electronics than clothing. I’d rather wander around in the computers and cameras than look at shoes.
I’d been looking at Pentax cameras, so I went to their website and found their forum. Someone had asked a question I actually knew the answer to, so I signed up, joined the forum, and answered the guy’s question. I thought maybe I’d found a place where I could talk “electronics” with other geeky people. Um, no.
Bam. Some other guy mocked me, and complained about the link in my answer – which was exactly what the original poster was looking for – and the next thing I knew, I got an email telling me I was, and I quote, “banned for life” from the Pentax forum.
This does not ruin my life or really affect me in any real way, but it shocked me so much I actually burst into tears, sitting here at my computer. I mean, what happened? What kind of people are working for Pentax? What kind of company is Pentax? I guess I know the answer to both questions now.
I am no longer interested in a Pentax camera.
Update: I just got an email from Adam, the Pentax forum administrator, informing me that he’s going to give me “the benefit of the doubt” and let me back into the forum. Any comments I make will have to be moderated before they post, of course, because that’s how we deal with people like me. Etc.
Pentax, why would I want to participate in a forum with people who obviously don’t believe me when I tell them I’m just a geek who wanted to talk electronics, and not a spammer? All I did on your forum was answer some guy’s question. Why would I want to hang out with people who treated a newbie like scum and assumed the worst before they even knew me?
I don’t, that’s what. I prefer to hang out with nice people.
Thanks anyway, Pentax, but, you know, I tend to judge a business by the people it chooses to represent it.
I will never be interested in a Pentax camera, ever again.
