We live in a society with a lot of options so I often feel the weight of indecision when going into certain situations. For example, you go to the supermarket to buy crackers and cheese and you’re faced with about 25 brands of crackers alone (like, why?) However, there are times when you may go guns blazing into a situation, knowing exactly what you want. And it’s VERY annoying in those circumstances when you make it crystal clear what you want and it’s still doubted for some reason.

You say ‘no’ and people think ‘ahh, she just means ‘not yet’.

You say ‘no’ and people think ‘she’ll say yes with a bit of persuading.’

And why? What part of ‘no’ or a ‘yes’ is so confusing? This often happens, surprise surprise, to women because God forbid they be highly rational or know what they want when they make decisions. It’s why we have to give credit to female entrepreneurs and CEOs – I honestly can’t imagine how often they face this issue on a regular basis and yet they still make moves and get things done. It must be tiring, constantly jumping through hoops and hoping people take your decisions at face value.

Anyway, that rant is to segue into my recent story of a grapple with customer services this week. I decided to save some money and cancel a subscription from a certain well-known British TV service provider. I made this very clear when I called – the automatic voice when you call customer services asks the purpose of your call and then so does the human adviser when you finally get through to one. For a straightforward request, I was shocked to find myself on the phone for over an hour trying to cancel my subscription. I was forwarded to three or four people, all as unhelpful as the other. In fact, they were even trying to sell me MORE things during the call (can you believe it?) The cheek. During and after the call I was fuming – it was a hairpulling experience, to say the least. I finished that call unsuccessful with my request. I decided the next day to call again and go in guns blazing, being very clear about what I wanted. I think I even said something along the lines of ‘Can we make this process quick please since I’m working and don’t have much time to spend on this.’ Result? A shorter call overall and my cancellation was successful.

The moral of that story isn’t to be rude to customer service but sometimes being firm and repetitive about what you want can never hurt.

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Read more about my ramblings with customer services in this previous post.

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Photo by Negative Space