Mrs B reaches breaking point

I felt so sorry for a friend of mine when she told me the following tale of woe : “I’ve got terrible earache but I can’t get an appointment with the doctor. They told me he was booked up for the next fortnight so I just gave in and came home.”

She was really suffering with her ears,  but was boiling with anger inside at being fobbed off yet again. Mrs B is a kind-hearted woman, who has had a few knocks in life. Her coping mechanism is to be pleasant and polite to people, in the hope that they will be nice back. The problem is that it doesn’t always work.

The pattern usually goes like this. By the way, these incidents didn’t all happen in the same day:

·         Mrs B goes to surgery, tries to make appointment, is told the doctor is too busy to see her, gives in and comes home.

·         Mrs B goes to a shop to return an item of clothing. Even though she has the receipt and is entitled to a full refund, she grudgingly accepts a credit note which she has to spend in the same shop.

·         Mrs B asks a shop assistant to scan an item for her as the shelf ticket has fallen off. The assistant, who has a hand-held scanner on her trolley, looks straight through Mrs B and tells her to go and ask at the customer services desk... where there is a long queue. Mrs B joins the queue.

·         Mrs B, who by now has had enough, goes to Tesco to buy a few groceries. As she is leaving the store, she is temporarily blinded by the sun. In front of her is a well-built youth with a shaven head. She walks past him towards the car park then, suddenly, out of the corner of her eye, she sees him running towards her. Mrs B screams and makes a dash for it, shouting “Help, he’s after me,” and throws a trolley in his path. She reaches her car in hysterics. Everyone has stopped to look at her. Well-built youth limps over to Mrs B, accompanied by the store manager. It turns out he is the security guard. He had given chase after the alarm was set off by a youth stealing an expensive mobile phone. They’d been watching him on the security camera but, thanks to Mrs B’s intervention, he got clean away.

·         Mrs B is banned from Tesco.

This is a perfect example of the straw that broke the camel’s back. By the time we get to the Tesco incident Mrs B is feeling well and truly downtrodden, persecuted, ignored – no wonder she thought someone was out to get her.

So, this is what I keep in mind if I need to complain, or make an appointment, or exchange an item, or generally have any dealings that require a request from me to another human being:

·         Know exactly what you want the outcome to be and how to put that into words, for example: “I would like to make an appointment to see a doctor today, or tomorrow at the latest.”

·         Be certain that you are entitled to have what you are asking for: “I have a thumping earache which is giving me pain and keeping me awake at night.”

·         Don’t be fobbed off, keep repeating what you want, clearly and calmly until you get it. If you have  to,  use different words or phrases to convey the same meaning. This stops you sounding like a parrot. So, “I have a terrible earache, please make me an appointment to see a doctor, preferably today.” Or, “I understand the surgery is very busy, which is why I will accept an appointment tomorrow, but I’m in too much pain to wait any longer than that.” ... and so on.

·         Don’t get angry or emotional. Bursting into tears will make you look pathetic and even more of a pushover, whereas shouting: “I pay my bloody taxes, give me an appointment now!” will get you nowhere.

·         Don’t get personal: “I’m telling you that I need an appointment today, you stupid cow.”

·         Don’t be sarcastic: “Perhaps you can have another look to see when the doctor is free, if it’s not too much trouble.”

Stay calm and stick to those bullet points, and you’ll get what you want almost all of the time.

Here’s a case in point. This week, I took on Tesco and won. Customer services went from point blank refusal to exchange an item, to full refund, apology and admission that they’d got it wrong. All because I stuck to my guns and kept my nerve. You try it.