There’s a time and a place to lie, or as others like to call it fib. It’s not a practice I condone and it’s certainly not something you should make a habit of doing. In life you will come across a situation where you are faced to shade the truth or tell a small lie in an effort to ‘do the right thing’. It happens – this isn’t anything to feel guilty about.
However, there is another type of lying . . . a more powerful and brutal dishonesty that is both intolerable and inexcusable. Both H and I have become experts in this fast growing segment of lying because people seem to do it to us on a regular basis these days. The car dealership has yet to call us back and the manager of the repair place taking care of our washer/dryer has lied to us about a callback not once but twice. Those are just two examples but since living here in California I find it happening more and more.
- Don’t Say You’re Going to Do Something and Then Not Follow Through – Things come up, schedules get pushed around and 90% of the population understands this. However, there is no reason to tell someone “I’m going to call you back …” or “I’m going to make sure Alexander calls you back today …” if there is going to be no follow-through. Just don’t do it. I’d rather you tell me “I’m not going to call you back …” or “Alexander is quite busy and probably won’t be able to return your call today …”. If you’re going to do something, do it. Don’t say it just to appease me and make me feel good for a fleeting moment.
- If You Don’t Know the Answer, Don’t Make One Up – I’d much rather someone tell me “I’m sorry, I don’t have the answer for you but I’m going to find out and get back to you right away”. I appreciate that honesty more than someone giving me a BS answer just to give me an answer. If you don’t know, tell me you don’t know. It’s okay. Of course this type of theory requires you to act upon two things: finding the answer and following-up so please don’t make one lie into two.
All of this stems from the terrible customer service experiences we seem to be having lately, and over the last year. I don’t know if it’s an LA thing, a California thing or what but this little game seems to be a regular occurrence out here for a segment of the population.
Don’t get me wrong – there are some great people in this town/state but there is also a large population that make their living on BS here in La La Land, and it’s getting old.
Tell me about it.
I think that when it involves some sort of “business transaction” then there should be no lying, period.
Be clear, direct and honest.
Like in your particular dilemmas, i mean these are “businesses” supposed professional people.
On the other hand I do think that in the land of “make believe” aka Los Angeles/Hollywood a lot not most, but a lot of people know how to bullshit and “blow smoke up ones butt”.
See they want to tell you what you want to hear.
I mean husbands have been doing this to their wives since the dawn of time
One thing i learned early on in my first jobs as a middle management geek while in college is that:
Customer Service is very important!
And we used this anagram: L. A. S. T.
Listen
Apologize
Solve
and Thank
There have been studies made that show that its in the best interest of a business/company to “keep existing customers” because it costs a lot of money to get a “new customer”. That is why there are so many “loyalty programs”.
Don’t let them string you along.
Make sure you are documenting all your communications with the parties in question.
And you might have to be anal about it..lol- times, dates, names etc.
Ask to speak with supervisors, managers, etc. and if need be google for the name of the president of that particular company, seriously and make a call, send an email or snail mail, seriously honestly.
A great website i enjoy reading regularly that is informative and on the side of we the consumers is- Consumerist.com