and All YOU'LL ever be is mean

Have you ever felt like turning this video up and giving someone in the next cubicle a little hint?  I called into a real estate office the other day and I swear the receptionist needed to hear this song.  All she was ever gonna be was mean.  It wasn't her fault, really.  Can you imagine--she has 327 bosses running around with at least a pair of clients apiece, which means she has 981 people who needed something from her yesterday.  Add in their lenders, the agents on the opposite side of the various transactions, their clients, and a home inspector per transaction and you get 4,251 people relying on her each instant and that doesn't tally people like me calling.  Now if each person calls her once a day (and we know it's always more than that), or stops by her desk, or faxes something in that she must handle, then that's around 12,753 interactions in a day.  No wonder she's mean!

That got me thinking...how often am I mean?  How often do I make the people answering the phone turn into mean people?

I was going to write a nice post about being nicer to people.  I had seven or eight little notes on how to make me happy when I talk to you.  Then, I started writing and I thought that maybe I should stop demanding that overworked, tired, stressed out people be nicer to me.  I should be nice to them.  After all, I like people a whole bunch more than I like voicemail systems--maybe I should be nicer to that receptionist for being a person who can interact with me, remember my voice, and manage to thank me for my call.