Whoa. What the fuck? A GF column on Saturday? Yeah, because fuck it. I need to get the count back to where it should be, and I know you're tired of me sounding like Ahab on that one, but clearly doing just two over the course of a week wasn't working out. Fuck my writing hiatus. I'm going to write more, goddammit. Fuck my sickness. Fuck my left eye. Fuck my missing blood. Fuck the menagerie of health issues. Time to do more instead of less. So you'll get another one of these next Saturday, too, and I'll be caught up.
Also, I'm cheating a little. On Saturday nights I get super high, so as you're reading this I'm probably passed out or just about ready to pass out. I wrote this earlier tonight.
So. I talk to at least 100 people a day. More often than not it's closer to 130. Today was only 101, but that's OK. Saturdays are always slow. But they're filled with people, just like every other day of the week, who know how to take one question and turn it into many.
I'm not talking about someone asking a question, getting an answer and asking a follow up, etc. I understand that a lot of motherfuckers out there talk to just fucking talk. And of my 101 today, I'd estimate that covers about 80.
What I mean is, I'll be talking to someone who has a "quick question." I think I've covered that here before. In my experience, of everyone who has said to me they have a quick question, only 0.0000001% of them actually do have a quick question. But what I'm talking about tonight is, someone calls in. They ask a question that has a very easy answer. I'll open my mouth to begin giving the very easy answer when they decide, no, they want to ask another question while they're asking that question. And come to think of it, they'll think of another question to ask, and before you know it they've asked a half-dozen questions without taking a fucking breath, and now they've finally stopped talking, and no matter what I do I'll pick the wrong question to answer. If I go in order, they'll interrupt and ask for the answer of one of the others. If I start with the freshest question, they'll interrupt and ask about the first one again.
Do they actually want the answers to these questions? They're usually easy answers. If they had the presence of mind to realize that they had just asked a question and should probably wait for me to answer it, then they would get their answers. And here's the kicker: they don't have to ask any questions outside of, "How much for a windshield for such and such a car?" For example. *I* will ask the questions, and I will answer every single question you have before you ask it. Just trust the process. I've been doing this for a long time. 99.999999% of the time, I've heard whatever it is you're about to say. It has to be something really outlandish for me to have not heard it before. Chances are, any question you can think of, I'll answer without you needing to ask it. I got my scripts down pat after, say, a year of working there. And that's being generous to me.
I don't mean to pick on our customers, as I've encountered these kinds of people in my regular life, too, but it's the easiest to talk about when we're talking about said customers. It's just that I can't get my head around why someone would ask a question, not wait for an answer, and then ask a bunch of other questions. Are they that way with the people in their lives? Do they conduct themselves thusly to their kids? To their parents? To their spouses? I suspect they wouldn't. Their loved ones would have definitely said something by now.
The world may never know . . .
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