Sacking Customers

Sooner or later in most businesses, you have to fire a customer.

The relationship may simply be a bad fit. Those are the easiest situations. There can be amicable and respectful separations. But the usual break is less direct and far less pleasant. Some customers are impossible to please, some are flat-out rude, and a few are crazier than bedbugs.

The biggest mistake is to refuse to sever a relationship because of money. As I tell my classes on harassment prevention, would you want to tell your employees, "You know, if someone pays us a lot of money, we let them harass you?" A public works executive put it even better: "We wouldn't let someone abuse our machinery. Why would we let anyone abuse our employees?"

The decision to fire the customer is often a matter of self-respect. Some customers skirt the edges of improper conduct, coming close to the breaking point, and then backing away. A few are so skilled at doing so that it is natural to suspect that they enjoy it. You are fortunate if you can spot that type before you commit to the project, but once you do, if at all possible, drop them like a hot rock.

Life is too short to be a door mat.

The Need for Elevation

Why is it that all children - and many adults - upon seeing the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry in the Harry Potter films, exclaim, "I wish I could have gone to a school like that?"

Set aside the floating candles and the shifting staircases: The answer is Style.

Modern elementary schools look like factories in which people sort rags or hammer on blocks. The architecture does not inspire or announce, "This is a place where something special occurs." The same thing can be said of many business and government offices. It is as if some evil-minded administrator once decreed, "Let's put up boxes of steel and glass and squeeze the majesty out of life." No wonder workers glance longingly out the window at the trees and not at any structure. The architects have sold us a bunch of crap. Occasionally as an apology, they toss a feeble excuse for sculpture in front.

Now shift to lifestyles. We once watched Cary Grant and Grace Kelly portraying lives that elevated our hopes. They and other stars showed us how people with values and style behaved. The anti-heroes and automatons are now supreme and when an exception arrives on the screen we almost weep in gratitude. I won't even start on the dreck that passes for popular music and late night television has fallen from a place where once you might have seen Jack Paar or Dick Cavett talking to Buckley, Vidal, Mailer, or Updike to a spot where Jay and Dave let stars do infomercials for their latest film.

We have become so practical and utilitarian. I majored in "Government" as an undergraduate. Now it's called "Political Science" although it is anything but a science. The word might, however, impress the Board of Regents. Perhaps "sciences" don't get their funding slashed as quickly as the softer subjects. The same mentality that believes there is such a thing as "Social Science" doesn't flinch at using concrete boxes to house students nor does it consider just what sort of people those boxes will produce. No problem. They can join a growing tribe of pragmatic careerists that combines avarice with adolescence and scoffs at values and sacrifice.

Little things make a difference. We could use a renewed dedication to the type of conduct that elevates the individual and the society. Dropping the notions that Coarseness = Truth and Refinement = Hypocrisy and that Style is a waste of resources will be a good start.

We can have lives of beauty.



[HT: Jonathan Wade]

Today's "Not to Do" List

1. No self-reprimands over decisions you made months or years ago. Their time is over. Move on.


2. No rush to label others. Labels may obscure your vision.


3. No belittling of your co-workers, friends, or relatives. They often carry invisible but heavy burdens.


4. No dabbling with the minor. Make every project a worthwhile one.


5. No seduction by the merely clever. Strive for depth.


6. No direct search for happiness. Happiness is a by-product, not a goal. Instead seek achievement, however small it may be. Happiness will follow.


7. No dedication to activity without an equal dedication to thought.


8. No underestimating your obligations to others.


9. No pretending that right is wrong or wrong is right.


10. No focusing on the prose without considering the poetry.


11. No submission to bullying behavior.


12. No skepticism toward decency and courage.

Two Daily Questions

What are you not doing now that could make an enormous difference in your life?

Why aren't you doing it?