2008-11-23
Yesterday I bought this new book “How to get what you want from almost anybody” today I could read the introduction of the book and thought to put what I learnt from that as today’s post.
The author explains one of his experiences at air port. The guy who was before him in the queue to get the plane booked after a flight got cancelled. The guy was a straight guy or in other words who simply says what he feels to the face.
The guy had asked for a well placed seat from the first class. Since he was a frequent flyer, he was well respected and recognized from the airline.
When the author went to the counter, after a gentle chat, he asked the person in the counter how hard his job was and he found that the bags of that tough guy has been put in a different (wrong) plane by the person in the counter willingly.
The author has approached the scenario in a different method. He was very gentle with the guy in the counter. When the counter guy asked him what seat he wants, he told the guy he would take any seat from any section of the flight and asked guy to keep the good seats to deal with tough guys.
However, when he got into the plane, surprisingly he was asked to sit in a very good window seat in the first class (the author himself also was a frequent flyer and well recognized).
The first guy is not wrong, he was upset because his flight was cancelled and he had lost his booked nice seat and had to settle for any available seat. So his anger would be justifiable in certain angles.
What he specifies at the end is…
” What do you want most? Is it the thrill of knowing that you are absolutely right, or would you be willing to sacrifice a bit of righteousness in exchange for pleasant, hassle-free service? “
I would not agree with what the author says because it’s not easy to stand silence and be calm when you lose something for some others mistake or problem.
I also have many experiences where I have acted the role of both the tough guy and the nice guy. I also believe that the nice guy approach makes people happy but yes, you may not feel comfortable leaving without talking against the wrong…
But at least it gets the work done which is considered as most important by most of the people of this era …
Cassian Menol Razeek
I Learnt Today 