This work by Sean A. Donahue is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Perspective: Radio edition.
Today’s topic is perspective. At work today I got a call from a listener that just fits everything I’ve been talking about recently.
“Hello Sean, I won Monster Truck tickets, but you never told me to pick them up, so I didn’t so I want tickets to the next concert that comes into town.”
HUH Are you kidding me, this winner was with me and I told her the same thing I told the rest, pick the tickets up on Friday. Now it’s OVER A WEEK AFTER the Monster Trucks were in town. When I told her that I would be unable to accommodate her request and offered her dinner and some t-shirts she screamed at the top of her lungs she said to me :
“Fuck you, I’ll never listen to you ever again.”
She got mad because I didn’t agree with her and in the end she took her ball and went home. Is this my fault, no. Did I offer a substitute prize? Yes! But she was so blinded, by not getting what SHE WANTED, that her fit and hanging up on me didn’t bother me at all. Ten years ago, I’d be shaken. I’d be worried about that one person. What happened if she determined the ratings of my station. OH NO!
But I realize now that I can’t control her actions. I can’t control that she didn’t pick up her tickets. I can take responsibility for calling her week of the show reminding her to pick up the tickets, I can take responsibility for even having her tickets with me at the event waiting for her. I can’t take responsibility for her not picking them up.
That’s what years in radio have given me, perspective. Instead of worrying about what I can’t control, the actions of other people and how when they don’t get the results that THEY want, I worry about how I can deliver results to them.
It doesn’t matter if she got mad and took her ball home.
I’ve got other friends to play with.
And for the record, her ball sucked.
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You think she’d take the dinner and t-shirts, THEN tell you to eff off. : o )
Actually, this just seems to be indicative of what many people see in others today: lack of respect and lack of taking responsibility for your own actions.
Years ago when I worked in the student activities field, I was amazed at how the people who were the nastiest often were the ones who didn’t get something that was available for free. Something about missing out on freebies just seems to boil blood for some reason.
It just makes me angry…
BTW she still hasn’t come to pick up her “prizes” yet!