Her Highness Kaikou inquired, “I often have problems with customer service. I am trying to discern when it is worthy to complain or comment on substandard service and when you let it fall by the wayside. In these modern times common courtesy is hard, very hard to come by.”
Substandard service, impoliteness, and discourtesies come from people with little or no interest for pleasing you. Whether it shows up as poor products, lack of recognition, rudeness, or uncommon delivery of service, you easily take offense that they see you as unimportant. However, why make them powerful enough to determine how you feel?
Looking back to better times, if courtesy is “very hard to come by,” it means things are getting worse instead of better. When social pressures worsen, they generate a vacuum. So, to improve courtesy, the vacuum must be punctured. Only more courtesy can do that, so who has to generate more courtesy if others aren’t courteous to you? Rather puts the responsibility in your lap, huh?
Substandard service is always according to your expectation, right? The deliverer of the service isn’t likely to call it substandard. So, you’re faced with this dilemma. Do you have any responsibility to teach them better? Probably not except to demonstrate superiority. Do you have the ability to treat them better than they deserve? You probably do if you pay attention to your natural softheartedness instead of your natural hardheadedness. You can’t be much more discourteous yourself than by telling or showing somebody how they didn’t do what you expect, especially since they probably don’t know what you truly expect.
So, I recommend you go proactive in delivering courtesy and learn how to more innocently recover from being mistreated. Before you can be treated impolitely or have substandard service delivered, open every encounter with your most courteous face and spirit, especially if you face someone with attitude showing. Make them want to please you by treating them differently from how others likely treat them. Be up front, blunt, and candid with pleasantness, friendliness, and compliments. Find ways to be different from everyone else.
When you are inordinately pleasant and proactively initiate above-average courtesies, an impolite incident or poor service becomes your fault. In spite of your initiative, the other person simply didn’t wish to go out of his/her way to please you. You tried and failed. So what? It’s a tough job convincing strangers they want to please you. You can do better the next time. When the fault lies with you, you can more easily forgive the offender and think better of yourself.
As for me, I initiate this way when dealing with females. I refer to them initially as “your highness,” which inevitably brings a smile or “you can say that again.” After they do something, I say that I love it when pretty women feed me, serve me, solve my problems, make my life easier, etc. And every woman I see or meet is pretty regardless of her appearance. (I’m not dishonest, because every female knows that she’s pretty.) I almost never get sub-standard service or impolite treatment.
As for dealing with men, I find them not too discourteous when in the business of interacting with the public. Men use respect for others as their trigger for common or better courtesies. It’s why well-dressed women particularly and men generally receive better service from men.
Men passing by in public, however, can easily be inconsiderate—on a mission, you know. The less self-respect they possess, the less their tendency to yield to others and vice versa. Respect is their trigger for basic politeness and courtesy.
As for women generating courtesy dealing with men, I suggest you adopt this phrasing and use it as often as you can. “Men are never more handsome than when they …” open doors for ladies, yield for a lady to pass, bowing to her whims, move her ahead in the line, or whatever favor or courtesy they show. Publicly recognize strangers and friends as gallant, respect them for doing right, and gentility appears.
Society becomes what women do today. If they wish to generate less substandard service and more courtesy, they must lead by example, teach other women, and reward men that respond favorably.
Best wishes,
Guy
The word “winsome” came to mind when reading this post. And along with thoughts of “winsome-ness” came a question about conversation. I do not consider myself a good conversationalist, even though I enjoy people. I think I am a better listener, but often do not know what to say in response. Do you have thoughts about how women may improve themselves in this area? It seems to be one thing to look pretty, to smile, and perhaps in that way to invite courtesy and/or conversation… but what next? I find a smile has carried me through since I started going out of my way to smile so much more… but I fear I am now using the quiet smile as a “crutch” now, and would like to cultivate other feminine responses.
Your Highness Anne,
Your success should not foster the idea that you should do more. Everybody loves a good listener. Women want to be wanted and people want better listeners. However, is you choose to cultivate other feminine responses, learn more about your female nature and find ways to gently insert it into conversations. For example, upgrade your everyday appearance another notch, more frequently offer to help others, or initiate an exercise program to better shape both mind and body.
Guy
I cannot vouch enough for Sir Guy’s approach in the area of courtesy. In my case the problem was with my female boss – now thankfully already a problem of the ever increasing distant past. From my own and many an “objective observers” point of view I used to be treated discourteously and felt strongly I was being dis-respected in addition to micromanaged and not trusted. To cut a long story short, I sat on my emotional reactions, went elsewhere in my mind when I was triggered (often to dream world of bright futures hopes) and proactively and increasingly over time showered boss with courtsey, respect, non self effacing humbleness and found after a very short period of time great and sincere enjoyment in this as boss changed before my very eyes. In going as Guy says ” proactive in delivering courtesy” it also became easy to “innocently recover from being mistreated”. My boss now goes regularly out of her way to please me in return, we have a fantastic working relationship,she trusts,admires and respects my work and me, we can share a joke and are close. Although I initiated and made these changes myself I have Sir Guy to thank for pointing me so lucidly in the right direction in the posts on difficult female boss where he is IMO promoting the same method for dealing with, and more than that, coming to respect “difficult” people. Sir Guy’s ‘method’, believe me, has made my working life pretty much a joy. LOVE THIS POST!