Rex M Rogers - Discerning What Is Best

Discerning What Is Best
With Dr Rex Rogers

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Details: Written by Rex M. Rogers; Published: 05 January 2011

Tonight, five of us went to an Olive Garden in Temecula, California. Once we were seated, the wait for drinks and further service was interminable. We were given salads but no plates. One member of our group waited for his salad plate nearly ten minutes after the rest of us finally got ours. During the meal we asked for items, were promised, but only received after we’d asked twice again. We were told by our waitress the manager would bring salads; never happened. When the manager finally did get involved, at my request, she apologized several times, said she’d bring us more salad but never did. One member of our group had ordered a meal with clams and mollusks only to discover that most of her shells were just that, shells with no meat in them. She had to ask for the meat that was promised with the meal.

The end of this story is the manager eventually, via the waitress, absorbed the entire bill, apologizing again and charging us nothing for five meals, a tab that approached $100. This is nice, was appreciated, and rarely happens. We left the harried waitress an appropriate tip. And by the way, this is not my typical experience at Olive Garden.

As I said, I asked to speak to the manager because my friend was left sitting after we’d spoken twice to our inefficient waitress. I rarely do this. Though I experience my share of poor customer service I rarely challenge or even respond to it, primarily because I don’t want to create conflict or otherwise appear to be just another unpleasant customer. But I wonder, is this avoidance the best idea?

Last fall at Philadelphia International Airport I endured my worst ever experience with a clerk. I needed to change a train ticket into a plane ticket. But the young woman at Continental Airlines didn’t want to assist me or didn’t know how to do what I needed. In any event, she presented me with an extreme condescending attitude and brusqueness, all the while tossing her head, rolling her eyes, and shaking her body in ways that indicated she thought I was beneath her effort.

What had I done to deserve this? Nothing. What made it worse is that her manager eventually stood behind her, watched her treat me the way she did—even with a “Tsk” of disgust when her question elicited an answer from me that she didn’t like. Yet the manager said and did nothing to intervene—even looked me in the eye to see how I might react.

I didn’t challenge this extreme attitude that day, but sometimes I think I should have done so, if nothing else so the young clerk would at least have the experience of being held accountable whether or not she agreed. But I didn’t say anything, just absorbed the bad behavior because I didn’t want to escalate the attitude war.

What bothers me most, and maybe this is ego or pride, is when I follow instructions exactly as given to me by one clerk only to have another clerk act as if I’m dumb, don’t know what I’m talking about, or simply a bother. This happens to me a lot, at hotels, car rentals, and stores—yet almost always I eventually prove to be the one with correct information about their procedures.

This happened during Christmas week when I had to work with three Rogers and Holland jewelry stores to get them to add an accent diamond, which was missing at delivery from the new engagement ring I’d just purchased. I approached the Grand Rapids store staff and said to them what the Lansing store staff said I should say. For five minutes until they got their bearings, to hear them interpret it, I was the uninformed customer. Actually, they didn’t know what they were talking about and consequently were blowing smoke to placate me or to get me to go away. When I finally got in direct touch with the jeweler, a gentleman about my age, he bent over backwards to meet my needs during Christmas time, even gave me his cell phone number. And he eventually added the accent diamond. I salute him.

But this customer service breakdown had happened earlier at the Lansing store, too, where we’d ordered the ring, were told they’d call me, but they did not. So after the deadline I called them. The manager kept saying she was “Sorry for my confusion”—said it three times until I intervened and said I was not “confused” but her store had not done what it said it was going to do. At that she admitted I was right and from there we resolved the issue.

I’m at a point where I’m old enough, experienced enough, and weary enough that I don’t think I want to go on in silence anymore. Like Olive Garden tonight, I think I’ll speak up. But if I do this, it seems to me the primary concern or key for success is not so much what I say as how I say it. I am, after all, a Christian, so I don’t want to evidence a decided lack of the fruit of the Spirit.

I don’t want to convey anger or any other uncontrolled emotion. I don’t want to be pushy, grouchy, or unduly demanding. I don’t want to be unfair. I want to give people a break and not always jump on their miscues.

But I also want to say, “Hey, wait a minute,” to note unprofessional attitudes or poor service or products. As long as I respond winsomely I think I have every right as a paying customer to speak truth to shoddiness or incompetence. Me not speaking up is not doing them any good or doing any good for the next customer treated in a similar shabby manner.

I’m not quite ready to wear a shirt that says, “Don’t Tread On Me.” But I am ready to say, “You know, you’d have a better day if you respected your customers.”

*This blog may be reproduced in whole or in part with a full attribution statement. Contact Rex or read more commentary on current issues and events at www.rexmrogers.com or follow him at www.twitter.com/RexMRogers.

Details: Written by Rex M. Rogers; Published: 05 January 2011

Much is being made of the Seattle Seahawks winning their National Football League division with a losing record, 7-9. The Seahawks will be the first team in NFL history to walk into the playoffs a “loser.” This offends purists. To make matters worse, the Seahawks went 3-7 in their last 10 games, not an especially auspicious way to get into post-season play.

But statistics aside, the Seahawks won their final game, won fair and square, and, well, won the division. The team earned its playoff berth by being the best in a weak division. So I say “Congratulations.” Not every team can be the New England Patriots in the same way not every quarterback is a Tom Brady.

There’re several lessons here: you don’t have to be perfect to be the best in your corner of the professional world; you should never, ever, give up; don’t listen to naysayers; keep working, getting better than yourself on each new professional effort; even less talented people sometimes win with desire, work ethic, and grit, things more talented people don’t always evidence—watch the Olympics for more lessons.

Contrast the Seattle Seahawks debate, though, with the annual intercollegiate NCAA Division I football bowl series fandango. Given the proliferation of bowl games in recent years—we now suffer through 35 bowls, all wishing they were the Rose Bowl and all longing to be scheduled on New Year’s Day.

Here we’re not talking about one team in a professional league. We’re talking about a self-defeating bowl explosion that dumbs down post-season intercollegiate play.

For 35 bowls you need 70 teams. Check the win-loss records of this year’s bowl participants and you’ll find 23 of 70 teams sport records with 7 wins or less, almost one-third, including once-vaunted Michigan. In 4 bowl games, both opponents featured 7-win or less records. In the 7-or-less club are 3 teams with .500 records. Still more mindboggling—and now we’re finally to the Seahawk comparison—6 bowl teams have losing records: Clemson, East Carolina, Georgia, Georgia Tech, Tennessee, Texas El Paso, all (6-7). Yet they made it to the show.

If people are going to become agitated by the Seattle Seahawks’ 7-9 losing record, perhaps to be consistent, at a minimum, we need to eliminate teams with losing records from collegiate bowl games. I’d even go one step further and suggest the NCAA would be better off if it increased bowl-eligibility standards from 6 to 8 wins in a season. This raises the bar and helps assure top achievement is rewarded.

But this won’t happen. Reason being is that the number of bowls is not about quality football but about money. Raising the bowl-eligibility standard would probably force bowls out of existence, thus universities with football programs would have fewer places to go to pay for the exorbitant funds they’re pouring into programs, trying at almost any cost to produce a winner. This includes most prominently the off-the-charts multi-million dollar, multi-year contracts head coaches are now commanding with even rather average records. It makes you want to ask whatever happened to academics—and I’m a football fan.

So do we get bugged at the Seattle Seahawks who played by the rules and won one for the Gipper? I don’t think so. At least they’re professionals and a losing record team can only get into the playoffs when other teams competitively don’t make the grade. It’s not really a system that rewards mediocrity.

On the other hand, I think the NCAA and BCS system is rewarding mediocrity each year. I’d radically readjust intercollegiate NCAA Division I football, which ultimately might produce better athletic contests and, who knows, maybe graduate more top-tier student-athletes who actually stay in school long enough to earn their degrees.

Details: Written by Rex M. Rogers; Published: 03 January 2011

Wouldn’t it be great to simply leave behind in 2010 a few troublesome situations, challenges, and maybe even some people?

Of course, what and who I’d leave behind may not be what or who others would leave behind, so it’s possible I might end up on someone’s “Sayonara,” “Arrivederci,” “See You Later Alligator” list. But that’s the risk of it all and in the end it’s just “good clean fun.”

The one and only other time I made a list like this, to my recollection, was “Things I Wish I Could Leave Behind In 2006.” Back then, I longed to be liberated from, among other things, the Iraq War, World Poker Tour, E.D. commercials, and poor cell phone etiquette. Pretty esoteric list.

So here’s my list in no particular order of things I’d like to leave behind in 2010:

Home Foreclosures. Even if you’ve been spared others have not. Whatever their source wouldn’t it be great to leave home foreclosures behind forever? No more nightly news coverage of some poor family moving into the street.

Faulty Communications Systems—on jets and in drive-throughs. We can send people to the moon, but we can’t develop speaker systems that actually work. Either they squeak, don’t work, are way too high volume, are way too low volume, or in multiple other ways mangle the person’s speech on the other end of the line.

Poachers. Illegal greedy hunters who, despite global attempts to stop them, still deplete the population of some of the world’s most interesting endangered species, like rhinoceroses, elephants, crocodiles, gorillas, and more.

Politicians Who Cheat On Their Spouses (Wives). I’m tired of these stories.

$100+ Airline Ticket Change Fees. No way it costs airlines well over one hundred dollars to change a ticket. It’s price gouging. Same for exorbitant baggage fees.

“Wonderful Christmas Time.” Paul McCartney’s secular Christmas carol that mindlessly and unmusically repeats “Simply having a wonderful Christmas time” ranks as an all time worst Christmas song.

Postal Stamps With $Designations. The U.S. Postal Service has developed a wonderful innovation called a “Forever” stamp. It features no monetary value. Whatever you paid for it, whenever you use it, the U.S. Postal Service will honor the stamp. Why don’t we do this with all stamps? Or at least do this with all stamps at the primary letter mailing cost of the moment? Right now, $.44. This means that when stamp costs go up, a sign is posted and you pay the new rate for the new “Forever” stamp. But you get to use it when you get around to using it. No more 1, 2, 3, 4, cent stamps purchased for use with old stamps.

“Reality” Television like “Jersey Shore,” “Keeping Up With the Kardashians,” and “Real Housewives of…” Mind-numbing junior high banter on sex, hooking up, clothes, sex, alcohol, sex, clubbing, sex, and more sex. Worst for me in all this is “Dad” Bruce Jenner, 1976 Olympic gold medalist decathlete, who married Kris Kardashian, became a father to this clan and now appears on the show as basically, a wimp. It’s a sad fall from Mount Olympus.

Facial Piercings and Tattoos. If people must decorate themselves would they consider doing it on some body part other than their face? I’ve yet to understand how facial markings improve a person’s appearance.

“Sexting.” Using text messages to send salacious pictures and content would be passé and past. Consequently, Bret Favre social media rumors would ride off into the sunset with him—assuming he actually retires from professional football.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Need I say more?

Advanced Imaging Technology. Airport scanners that turn travelers into naked images should be sent back to the lab from whence they came. Someday we’re going to hear how the radiation was bad for us after all, or we’re going to see a celebrity’s altogether on the Internet. I still maintain there are better ways to assure security in air travel.

Enhanced Body Pat Downs. These wondrous new methods for assuring traveling security are worse than AIT scanners. Don’t tell me safety requires we make an elderly lady stand up from a wheelchair so she can either be assisted into a machine that dehumanizes her or be subjected to an even more humiliating body rub by a stranger touching private places, and all this in front of God and everybody. Enhanced body pat downs are dumb, wrong, unnecessary, inconsistent, and ultimately, minimally effective.

America’s War in Afghanistan. It’s time to get out. Political leaders cannot articulate consistently why we’re there or what we’re trying to accomplish. And Osama bin Laden has long since left that particular building, or cave, or countryside.

Teen Paranormal Romance. The Twilight Series is tame, I know, by the rest of today’s tween and teen romance standards and certainly the standards of so-called adult literature. But we’d be better off without any of it, including HBO’s “True Blood,” blood and gore “romance,” erotic horror, and similar twisted stories about forbidden love with violent creatures.

*This blog may be reproduced in whole or in part with a full attribution statement. Contact Dr. Rogers or read more commentary on current issues and events at www.rexmrogers.com or follow Dr. Rogers at www.twitter.com/RexMRogers.

Details: Written by Rex M. Rogers; Published: 01 January 2011

I enjoy making a few New Year's resolutions, though in 34 years in higher education I tended to set more goals at the beginning of academic years in the late summer. But resolutions or new goals either one are a good thing, I think, because they’re forward looking.

New Year’s resolutions, like the New Year in general, are a sign one is hopeful and open to a future different from the present. You know, “Hope springs eternal.”

A year ago in January I wrote about New Year’s resolutions. It’s interesting to later read what one has written to see if it’s stood the test of time, or to see if you even still agree with yourself.

In any event, Happy New Year, and may your resolutions be good ones soon realized in 2011.

Details: Written by Rex M. Rogers; Published: 31 December 2010

New Year’s Resolutions are fun if not always fruitful. Here are a few resolutions better left unmade:

--I resolve to eat with wild abandon.

--I plan to pay more taxes cheerfully.

--I’ll watch every episode of each new “reality” TV program in 2011.

--I’ll invest all my savings with Bernie Madoff.

--I hereby give up Starbucks in favor of McDonald’s coffee.

--I resolve to fund my retirement plan buying lottery tickets.

--I’ll hold my breath until Conan O’Brien is actually funny.

--I’ll ask Lindsay Lohan for advice.

--I will send money to the ACLU, Planned Parenthood, and MoveOn.org.

--I’ll read every “Teen Paranormal Romance” book in Barnes and Noble.

--I resolve to enroll in the Charlie Sheen school-for-how-to-live-responsibly.

--I’m going to write books about Amish celebrities.

--I’ll support ethanol subsidies.

--I resolve to believe everything Tiger Woods says.

--I’ll watch more bowling on TV.

--I resolve to eat more sugar, salt, and flour.

--I will join the ranks of those who never exercise.

--I expect to visit all the world’s toxic waste dumps.

--I will listen to all of Vice President Joe Biden’s speeches in one marathon weekend.

--I’ll believe in the Detroit Lions.

--I resolve to keep making resolutions.

Details: Written by Rex M. Rogers; Published: 30 December 2010

Sarah and I have remarked for years how few people seem to invite others, or at least us, into their homes. But I don’t think it’s just us because I’ve heard others make the same lament. I’m not sure if this is something characteristic of West Michigan or whether it’s a lost art in the 21^st Century American culture.

In 17 years of university leadership we were invited to someone’s home only on rare occasions. There were, of course, notable exceptions. In particular I’m thinking of three families who invited us to share their home and hospitality many times. They were friendly and became friends, and we value their friendship to this day. But this was by far not the norm.

I recognize that as President I was considered the “Boss,” and social dynamics got in the way of staff members relating to me in any other way, no matter the setting. Personnel in most organizations do not typically invite their boss to their home. So I get that. But I don’t get others for whom this dynamic never existed.

As I said, I don't know if this phenomenon is unique to our region or a lost art nationally. Drawing on other experience I’d guess it’s both, meaning I believe West Michigan has an extra dose of it and that it’s a national trend too. But I also know certain areas of the country, the South for example, are characterized by more open attitudes about inviting people to one’s home.

In the Middle East, inviting people to one’s home is the height of hospitality. When first introduced, Middle Easterners would rather invite you to their home than be invited to yours. By going to their home you show them honor and respect and they, in turn, become better acquainted with you. In the States we don’t seem to do either as much as I remember from my youth.

In Proverbs 18:24 Solomon said, “A man that hath friends must show himself friendly,” (KJV). It seems to me that inviting someone to your home is an incredible way to express openness and genuine friendliness. If I invite you and you come to my home you learn more about me because you see me in my natural habitat. The same is true in reverse.

Perhaps this is why people don’t invite others to their homes as much as people used to do. They don’t want others to learn about them. We’ve isolated ourselves in our cocoons and don’t want to be bothered or known.

It’s a free country, I know, so if people choose not to invite others into their home there isn’t much I can say about it. Except that I think they lose an opportunity for friendship, fellowship, connectedness, and community. They lose a chance to know and be known, which is a part of being human.

Inviting people into your home is a blessing that flows in both directions—to your guests and back again to you.