A little balance

I am now going on 5 months working for The Man.  To my surprise, I've gotten into a groove and am quite happy with our arrangement.  I have amazing flexibility with the days and hours I work and have even started to grow fond of this crazy guy.  His mind is as sharp as a tack and I have to respect that.  Although he is quick to anger and get frustrated, not to mention is very disorganized, he is on top of things.  At 75, The Man is incredibly active and gets around. 

A large portion of my time is being utilized contacting and writing people all over the country with his latest complaints.  The Man knows how to work the system.  He takes pleasure in finding something wrong with whatever business he has used and makes a complaint.  A not to just one person, but a whole string of people associated with the business, all the way on up to the President/CEO in charge.  I believe The Man wishes for something to go askew just so he can complain about it.  His big thing is trying to get reimbursed for whatever it was he just paid for. And if they won't refund his money, then he'd like a free week of a rental car, or a hotel stay, or tickets to the theatre, etc. 

I find the whole thing very funny.  I've spoken to more Secretary's to the President than I can count.  These (mostly) women are very nice and want to do whatever they can to fix the situation and make The Man happy again.  Because if it gets to their boss (the President), then they will be told to make him happy any way.  Once we've gotten a phone number for the secretary and a name, we put it in his rolodex for future use.  When it comes time to patronize their business again (Avis, American Airlines, Hilton, etc), he's already established a relationship with them and he goes right to the top for reservations to be made and to be taken care of.  You got to admit, he has this system perfected.

After working for The Man, on average 6 to 8 hours a week, I feel the need to do the complete opposite and give a little balance to the world.  Don't get me wrong, if I feel I've been given lousy service, I will most definitely speak-up, but I am not going out of my way to look for it.  I am more aware now of fantastic customer service and am doing my best to let the powers that be know, they've got a great employee representing their business.  For example, we went to Cheff Geoff's on a Saturday night a few weeks ago.  It was a pretty big party (8 people for the reservations and then an extra 2 people surprised us and sat at the table with us).  The service was impeccable and the waiter did a great job taking care of us.  I had made the reservation on Open Table.com and was given the opportunity to review the restaurant after our visit.  Of course, I was going to give it glowing remarks and make sure that they knew our waiter and the food was top notch.

In my opinion, you get more flies with honey than you do with vinegar.  I don't know if The Man has always been like this, but I do think its a game to him.  Fortunately, I'm around to give all his complaining a little nicer edge to it.  After all, it's me making the phone calls on his behalf.  They don't get transferred to speak to The Man until I've given them a quick rundown of what is going on.  The Man is lucky to have me.  :)