Because He Closes The Windows
This afternoon I spent time with someone who is incredibly important to me.
We spoke about control, guilt and presentation.
Throughout the afternoon we enjoyed sitting by an open window – but then, it rained for a few minutes and a scary-looking guy came over and gleefully closed it.
I asked him why.
He said “I am told by the manager to close it when it rains”
I said “I understand, and I can see why because rain inside sucks. But, maybe it’s a passing shower – would you mind keeping it open?”
He said “I am told by the manager to close it when it rains”
I said “OK – no worries”
The rain cleared 4 minutes later but the window stayed shut. Our man was reading a paper at the end of the bar. He knew it had stopped raining but his point had been made:
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I went to speak with him – to see if we could have the window re-opened. He waved me away before I could get to him. His colleague however, came to speak with me.
The colleague didn’t have the legacy of our conversation so opened the window after the original guy spent at least 10 minutes trying to talk him out of it.
Here is our friendly colleague favoring the customer experience. Isn’t he happy?
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You see – the thing is, the other guy (who closed the window) CLOSES WINDOWS.
It’s what he does.
You can’t argue with that.
By attempting to contravene you are essentially removing his raison d’être.
The guy above, however, doesn’t feel bad about opening the window – (I wonder if) instead he feels as if he is betraying his colleague by doing so – hence the expression!
All in all, if customer service was actually about ‘the customer’, things would be better for the customer.
As it stands, ‘the customer’ is little to do with it.
Attitude, politics, bias, circumstance and pride are all playing such a large part, we don’t get a look in.
Nevertheless, the open window was great, unlike the conversation our man above had with the original ‘closing window’ guy…
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Linda – this one’s for you 
