Dumb Letters: I'm Not Rude, You're Boring

This letter (the second one on the page) bugs the heck out of me on two very different levels. It's in response to a bit about just how rude it is to be diddling with your name-brand smart-phone device during a business meeting. Read letter first, read me gripe later.

If listeners are pulling out their BlackBerries at a meeting, speakers should take it as a signal that they need to improve their communication skills. It is the speaker's responsibility to be concise, show his or her commitment to the topic and reach out to make a connection with each listener in the room.

Making an impact in a meeting doesn't just happen; the speaker needs to work at it.

Too many executives get caught up in what they're saying that they don't think about the impression they're sending out by how they're saying it. No wonder listeners are tuning out and turning on their BlackBerries.

Okay, first off, rude is rude. I shouldn't have to, but let me say that again with italics and bold and - what the hell - all caps: RUDE IS RUDE. I don't care if the speaker is as boring as the TP(X)611. If you have a meeting scheduled from 12-1, then you can pick up your messages at 1:01. End of story. If you even have one of those things in the meeting, you may as well just say "fuck you" to the speaker and be done with it. Obviously, your time is much more important than anyone else's and you shouldn't deign to be in this meeting with these low-lifes who bothered to show up and meet you in person rather than ping you on your little toy from their secure undisclosed location, which is probably the Starbucks on Broadway and 51st. Get over yourself.

Second gripe: this is another self-serving letter, a close relative to yesterday's dumb letter. But in a way, more pernicious. Guess what the letter-writer does for a living? Here's what it says under her name.

The writer is a speech coach.

Ha! You know, I probably could have told you that without even reading that tidbit. Of course, she can't make any money off of people just having common courtesy. So it's obviously the speaker's fault. And hey, she can help! For free, I'm sure. This is essentially an advertisement for herself, published gratis by our pals at the NYT. Congrats, fellas. Either you're complicit or you've been had.

And what great logic. Next time I'm at the movies and I'm bored I'm just going to whip out my banjo and start hollerin' some folk tunes. Nobody else will mind. After all, it's the filmmaker's responsibility to keep me engaged. If they can't, well, it's no wonder the banjo comes out and "Come Home Bill Bailey" takes over. What else am I supposed to do? It can only lead to better movies.

"That's the Way I Was Raised"

Could we please retire this phrase? And it's variant "that's the way I was brought up"?

All this really means is "I don't have to take responsibility for my opinions or actions. It's all my parents' doing. Therefore, you cannot challenge me on it. I couldn't be bothered to examine whether this opinion/action/personal hygiene method was proper, ethical or legal on my own."

Some of us were "raised" by good people. Some of us were raised by assholes. Some of us were raised by good people who just weren't all that smart. Or maybe were a bit behind the times.

Please feel free to give your parents whatever credit they have coming. But no matter who you were raised by or how, please take responsibility for your own views and modus vivendi. If you can't do that, you shouldn't be taken seriously.

Thank you.

More Fun with Surveys

A follow-up to a prior post about surveys.

Here is a portion of a brief survey that I was asked to take recently.

My problem with the surveys in the prior post was that they were designed to push the user toward a selection favorable to the company issuing the survey. Which of the radio buttons above would you choose?

The webinar was fine. Everything worked as it should. It didn't give me a backrub or a shoeshine but it worked well. So should I select "Excellent"? Well, excellent is a bit much. How about "OK", then? Well, it was better than okay. It was a well-functioning tool. If I had a choice between these two, say, "Good", I would have chosen that.

Guess which one I chose?

None of them. I deleted the survey. But I guarantee that they get a lot more Excellents than OKs.

Survey SAYS...!

You supply the buzzer sound. I'm out of onomatapoeic juice.

I get surveys sometimes. I'm sure you do too. I hate them. I don't mind answering questions. It can be kinda fun. I do mind answering leading questions or being overly constricted in how I respond.

Now, I construct surveys as part of my job, so I know from whence I speak. But my goal in constructing a question and a list or range of possible responses is to gather accurate information. Some surveys, on the other hand, seem designed to get you say you liked something.

Let's play.

Here's a question in an "honest" survey, using a standard Likert scale.

Please rate your experience with our Customer Service group, with 1 being least satisfied and 5 being most satisfied.

1 2 3 4 5

This is straightforward and allows the respondent to be as objective as possible. Most respondents will select 3 or 4, while some malcontents (or those who are actually unhappy with the service or, just as likely, the product) will select something lower. The rare Sally Hawkins will choose 5. All-in-all, and assuming a meaningful cross-section of customers, you should get a reasonably accurate assessment of your performance as perceived by your customers.

This brings me to a survey that I receive regularly from a company that services me. (Service me, baby.) I never complete it. I'll tell you why. Here's their scale.

Check out the difference in this scale. This is designed to get you to say you were satisifed, and very satisified, at that. First off, there is no middle answer. In a normal Likert scale, there is an odd number of choices, so a respondent can remain entirely neutral by selecting the middle button. Eh.

Now, the question leading into this scale has the following "explanatory" text. "In the scale below, 1 is Very Dissatisfied, 5 is Neutral, 10 is Very Satisfied and N/A is Not Applicable." But graphically, there is no neutral. Note the line creating a strong delineation between satisfied and dissatisfied. There is no true neutral here. And if 5 were truly neutral, then the scale should be 1-9 or 0-10. This is constructed so that you have to fall on one side or the either.

Wait, there's more. In addition to the line separating satisfied from dissatisfied, they've added an N/A button. So this actually does create an odd number of choices. But note the placement. It's on the far right, making 6 the choice in the exact center of the scale. Respondents with a neutral experience are even more likely now to select 6. The instruction is telling you that 5 is neutral but your eyes are telling you that 6 is. You also don't want to select 5 because it's clearly not neutral, what with that vertical line telling you that it really means you were dissatisfied and the fact that it's actually physically left of center.

One more thing: In a normal Likert scale, the numbers' meaning may be spelled out even more clearly for you. 1=Very Dissatisfied, 2=Somewhat Dissatisfied, 3=Neutral, 4=Somewhat Satisfied, 5=Very Satisfied. The only text in this scale is "Very Dissatisfied" and "Very Satisfied". You're not going to say you were very dissatisfied, are you? People will tend to err on the side of okayness rather than crumminess, unless the rep was a real prick.

The end result is way more positive response than if the survey were constructed in a purely objective fashion, which was easily achievable, as demonstrated earlier. And the company can now claim that, say, 95% of respondents were satisfied with their performance. It looks good, but it probably isn't true.

It's possible that all this is done to weight the survey against cranks. I, for one, don't usually answer these unless I have a complaint. This may be a way to offset that. But if you have to do that, then you have worthless data from the get-go.

As if this weren't bad enough, here's another question in the survey.

Did the Customer Support representative provide exceptional service to you in resolving your service request?

Yes

No

So if I answer "Yes", I'm saying they were "exceptional". If I answer "No", I'm saying what? They were crummy? This reminds me of the bit that Stephen Colbert does where he has a U.S. congressperson in for an interview and asks them "George W. Bush: Great President or The Greatest President?"

The congressperson sputters. The audience snickers. Colbert says "I'll just put you down for 'greatest'."

Three Types of Audience Member That Piss Me Off

Okay, so it's the day before Christmas and I'm supposed to be all peaceonearthgoodwilltowardsmen and shit. Well, it's raining here so I'm gonna rant a bit about people that piss me off. 'Cause I never do that.

Concert tickets are expensive. Unless you like really unpopular music (and I do like a lot of it) you're going to shell out some bucks for a show. At least for well-known artists. So with great anticipation (and money) I went to see Neil Young at MSG last week. Big show. Two opening acts, one of whom was Wilco, another musical act I like a whole lot.

So, how was the show, you ask? Well, if I had a gas mask, x-ray glasses and unidirectional ear plugs it would have been great. There are three distinct flavors of annoyances at concerts that make me batshit crazy. And they were all there. I shall now gripe about each in turn.

1. The Person Who Stands Up All the Time - I'm all for being excited by the act that you just shelled out a bundle to come see. But as an old SNL sketch demonstrated (sorry, can't find it online), crowds collectively decide whether to stand or sit at concerts. When there's just one yokel doing it, it's annoying. Especially when they're fewer than three rows in front of me. This person stood up after every song to throw her hands in the air, further obscuring the view. This is okay, assuming you're going to sit down again in a somewhat timely fashion. Which she usually didn't.

2. The Guy Who Sings Along to EVERY FUCKING SONG - I swear, I get this guy at every big concert I go to. Does he think that no one can hear him? Does he think I want to hear him? Does he know what the word "off-key" means? Does he think I dropped a hundred bucks to hear Neil Young with Special Guest Doug Malinowski in Row C Seat 13? Will he sign my ticket stub? My favorite part was during "Powderfinger" when he not only sang the words, most of which he knew, but the goddamn guitar parts too. ("The closer they got, the more these feelings greeeeew! Dairn dair dairn de-dair-dair dair de-dairn!") I actually was relieved when Neil sang new songs that no one knew. At least this dude shut up for a bit.

3. The Smoker - You knew this was coming, didn't you? Smoking was banned at pretty much every indoor space in New York City early on in the Bloomberg administration, and no one was happier about it than I. Finally, I said to myself, I can go out and hear music (and play music) without wanting to die. Apparently, this is not so much the case. One dude lights up. Stinky. Gross. It can be nipped in the bud if somebody nearby says "Hey, dude, do you mind?" or an usher comes by and politely asks the offending party to extinguish. But when this doesn't happen, it emboldens others around to do the same. The original party, now emboldened in turn by the acquiescence and participation of others, ceases to hide the cigarette under the seat between puffs, and in his cupped hands during puffs, and just smokes openly through the whole freakin' show. Person #1 even joined in. She was too far away for me to tell if she pulled off the annoyance trifecta, but she clearly didn't have much lung power because, rather than being forcefully expelled upward and/or outward, the smoke just drifted out of her mouth and wafted back towards me to say hello. I did not return its friendly greeting.

Rules don't mean anything if nobody enforces them. Now, there are no hard and fast rules against #1 and #2, so I accept that I'm just a curmudgeon who should stay home if that crap bothers him. But #3 really angers me. Apart from the general unpleasantness (that I spent a lot of money to experience, fuck you very much) I had a freakin' headache for most of the show, which was really long, by the way. And, oh, you know, it's just the law and all. Not that anybody cares about laws in this country anymore.

Am I overreacting? Is it just me? Seriously, what the hell is wrong with people?

Oh, by the way, Merry Christmas!