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I Resemble That Remark

I Resemble That Remark

Here is a passage from the most recent edition of Balancing Act®, my free, monthly newsletter:

• In an age where everyone has a tip jar out, even the cashiers at Starbuck’s (where they should tip you to put up with the pomposity), here are two job classifications which often go undertipped: bartenders and hotel chamber maids.

Well, sure enough, I received this response from an outraged barista whom I’ll call “Milly”:

“I have been a subscriber to your newsletter for many years and gain great value from it and your various thoughts and observations.

“I’ve not written before, but feel compelled to express deep disappointment in your comment about the baristas at Starbucks. Many of those baristas are among the finest humans on earth. I work for Starbucks, but I am responding only as a concerned citizen and proud customer.

“Your remarks offended me and I’ll have to determine if I remain a subscriber. In the future, I hope you will consider that you are a person in a position to influence and in this case I feel you used extremely poor judgment and your callous statement did nothing to further the point you intended to make.”

I wrote back to tell her that if she chose to cancel her free subscription, she should do so. My experience is that confident, healthy people readily accept light mockery, and that a highly developed sense of humor is a sign of high intellect. Conversely, people who are thin-skinned and find offense around every corner usually suffer from low self-esteem.

I’ve been happily dealing with consulting jokes forever (my favorite: “A consultant is someone who comes to study a problem and then remains to become part of it.”). I’ve dealt with jokes about Rhode Island, where I live (don’t ask), my lifestyle, my origins (Union City, NJ), you name it. At the conclusion of every edition of Balancing Act is a brief story of yet another of my own bonehead maneuvers.

Starbucks IS pompous. (I once heard a “barista” say that he did not know what an “iced tea” is, since it’s not on the menu of grand vente mucho soy pretension.) But even if it’s not pretentious in your eyes, we all still need to get a life. How seriously can we take ourselves? Nothing we do is about to influence the direction of western civilization. We’re orbiting an exploding star. Lighten up.

My introduction, when keynoting, often includes the fact that I’ve been to 49 states but am afraid to go to North Dakota. Everyone laughs. Sure enough, one woman remarked at one speech during a break that she was from North Dakota, and was sure that anyone else from North Dakota would be equally offended.

“Then why didn’t you leave?” asked my wife, “and give your seat to someone in the standing-room-only crowd who wanted to hear my husband speak?”

Life is short. But it can be incredibly shorter if you take yourself too seriously, have no sense of humor, or think that someone asking you about a half-decaf, soy, double-shot, grande vente, Pompachito isn’t screamingly funny!

© Alan Weiss 2009. All rights reserved.

Written by

Alan Weiss is a consultant, speaker, and author of over 60 books. His consulting firm, Summit Consulting Group, Inc., has attracted clients from over 500 leading organizations around the world.

Comments: 14

  • Jenn McGroary

    June 4, 2009

    Bravo, Alan. You’re right, if people take offense, they are free to unsubscribe. We aren’t out to please everyone.
    I happen to enjoy your writing/speaking style. Very frank and too the point. You inspire me to educate myself a little each day in everyday matters of business/lifestyle/culture/etc.

    By the way, I do enjoy the “Bonehead” stories at the end of the newsletter. Reminds us that we are all human. 😀 Thanks for sharing.

  • Meredith Hamilton

    June 4, 2009

    I should have known your wife was a pistol! Her quick-fire answer and absolute support of you is telling and touching. (And yes, we should all lighten up a bit.)

  • Philippe Back

    June 4, 2009

    Speaking of coffee and tips, I would give one here:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4VkkMESfIOk

  • Gretchen

    June 4, 2009

    Love the blog title. 🙂

  • Gretchen

    June 4, 2009

    Oh rather…blog POST title

  • Dave

    June 5, 2009

    What I love about reading your stuff is that you don’t hold back from saying what you really think. It’s why I subscribed and bought several of your books. Most of the time I think you’re right too.

    However, in the process, come across a bit arrogant. But, I think that is more because of the stark contrast between your honesty in communicating what you think than that it is true arrogance.

    In fact, I’m starting to think that 90% of being a successful consultant is having an opinion that you present as fact. People only follow those kind of leaders. If you presented it as, “in my experience…” there would be no reason to follow.

  • Dave

    June 5, 2009

    Yea, I read that in one of your books too.

    While INTENT _may_ define what arrogance is, it does not help the PERCEPTION.

    Has anyone else noticed how that definition is self excusing? If instead of saying your come across as arrogant, I say that you really are, by your definition, it’s my problem and you have no responsibility for evaluating if maybe, just maybe you ARE arrogant.

    Does this statement, “The people who choose to call me arrogant or abrasive simply can’t deal with me intellectually, so they call me names…” not essentially say, “I’m smart. They are too dumb to deal with me, so it’s not that I’m arrogant, it’s that they are too dumb to make an intelligent argument.”?

    So while people may just call you names instead of arguing with you, you end up defending yourself with a statement that is itself hard to argue with.

    Kind of like the guy in church who argued that we ought to do something to show how much faith we have in God. If I say we shouldn’t that puts me in a position of not having faith.

    I’m still a fan of yours. I still direct people to your site. I’m sure this attitude is a huge part of why you have the clients you do. But, in print at least, I think that maybe, just maybe, your success has also caused a blind spot here that might be worth taking a closer look at instead of just brushing off with a Weissism that also has the same issue.

  • Josh Richards

    June 5, 2009

    Alan — When is your next product coming out? A t-shirt that simply says:

    “We’re orbiting an exploding star. Lighten up.”

    🙂

    -jr

  • Alan Weiss

    June 5, 2009

    Gads, that’s a GREAT idea!!

  • Anita Sirianni

    June 9, 2009

    Fight nice, gentlemen!

    Actually, I was just looking around for some inspiration and new ideas from one of my fav experts and find such bantering..tisk tisk.

    Why can we all just get along? Afterall, there is SO much work to be done!

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