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Just don’t be mean. I read this a while ago, then observed an interaction at a bar that made me want to respond: A party kept moving from table to table. I hav
by jakear 4y ago
Just don’t be mean. I read this a while ago, then observed an interaction at a bar that made me want to respond:
A party kept moving from table to table. I have no clue why. But the waiter would need to go and clean every table that they left, for both basic sanitation reasons as well as COVID. Waiter didn’t know what to do to get them to stop. So he goes to bartender to tell him the issue.
Bartender immediately says to them: “guys, every time you move we have to clean a table so pick a spot“. Party never moves again.
Bartender could have thrown a bunch of “if you don’t mind”, “we’d really appreciate”, “please”, etc’s in, but didn’t. They also could have thrown some less pleasant adjectives in, but again didn’t. They explained the problem, proposed a solution, and left it at that. That’s the “nice” thing, IMO. Anything else is patronizing or aggressive.
- darkerside 4y agoSaying please is patronizing? But I do think this is generally a good example. Don't water it down if you are setting a boundary.
- jakear 4y agoMaybe not patronizing, but it does hurt your case. My team recently went though to remove “please” from all dialogs because user testing found phrases like “please reload to active X” resulted in more people ignoring the dialog and later wondering why X wasn’t activated than just “reload to active X”. I assume the bartender has run similar experiments.
- darkerside 4y agoI agree it doesn't belong on what are essentially street signs for mass consumption (i.e. Please Stop). If you are asking a fellow human being individually, I think treating others with respect only helps build a strong culture.