Thinking Outside The Box

Story: The Complaint Department

There was a man who loved to hear complaints. He loved to hear how people did not receive what they wanted. In all his jobs he was in
charge of handling complaints which he would do with a happy smile. He volunteered for non-profits and always took the role of listening to the complaints of anyone who had any.

He knew that each person who had a complaint really wanted an an
argument. He found arguments relaxed him immediately. The argument always had an essence of focusing on what one is lacking, rather than what one has. He had a fool proof answer to every complaint and it always worked. He was a master. People would always end up calling him "The Complaint Department.

Since no one in whatever organization he was in wanted to handle
complaints because of the arguments they always led to, he always found that people would immediately let him handle them. And since the interaction with the customer who had the complaint was usually their first contact with the service side of the business, his bosses were always very happy with how he managed to transmute negative energy into positive energy. They always left in a good mood and never returned.

Every day one of his co-workers watched angry customers coming into
the private office of the 'complaint department" and after a 15 minute talk they would leave in a completely different state and never be seen again. The co-worker was amazed and decided to find out his secret, which he never shared with anyone.

"You've got to tell me your secret," he demanded of the Complaint
Department in a way that had not taken much thought. "How do you transform the customer so quickly?"

"I can't tell you that..." the complaint department responded
defiantly as if someone had asked the master chef the secret ingredient of his best sauce, and promptly walked away.

Not to be deterred, the co-worker made an arrangement with an actor
friend to file a complaint and so be seen by the Complaint Department.

When his friend reported back to him he did so in an astonished state.

"What happened? What did he do?" asked the co-worker, almost feverish to know how the Complaint Department did his magic.

"Well, I came in furious because I said one of your widgets didn't
work. I had imagined all of the things that weren't working in my life and I used that emotion to really build up a temper. He sat there smiling and quietly interrupted me and said..."

"I need your cooperation so we can achieve your goal. I see you are
a brilliant man and we need your input on how to better design our widget. Obviously there is something quite wrong with it. Thank you for bringing this to our attention.

Would you like to participate in eliminating the cause of your irritation?"

The request was so well put, and combined with the complete
acknowledgment of the problem and compliment of his intelligence, the actor's negative emotion was completely deflated and all he was able to say was, "Yes..."

"Excellent, we see our customers as part of our family and we have
every intention of using your exceedingly valuable information."

This brought out a smile from the actor who was completely charmed and truly felt part of the solution.

"There is however one condition...." said the Complaint Department
in a somewhat serious manner. The actor now felt like a fly in a spiders web, there was no way out. The trap was set perfectly. All the Complaint Department had to do was to bring down the gavel:

"We can only achieve this if you can write down immediately (with a
severe stress on the immediately such that the actor knew he had to do it IMMEDIATELY).....<prolonged pause for more emphasis>.....10 things that YOU have that this child in Sierra Leone DOES NOT HAVE!"

He held up a picture of a child that was so utterly beautiful yet
so utterly destitute that it almost made the actor cry immediately. It felt so strange not to agree so he started writing:

1. Running water.

2. Car

3. 3,000 sq ft house

4. As much food as I want....

By the time he got to #5 he stopped and quietly looked at the
Complaint Department. There was such a look in his eye that a rush of conflicting emotions hit him at once in such a wave that he almost fell off the chair. Almost in shock, he got up and without saying anything walked out of the office and into the clear fresh air waiting for him outside. He never complained again.