The put-down class: are you victim or perpetrator?

Melbourne Herald Sun, Friday January 14, 2011

The TAFE class on Customer Put-Downs 101 is in session.

Our teacher watches his group of computer technicians, giving handy advice. “OK the lady does not understand why her letter is completely written in purple capitals, let’s see that quiet smirk.”

The diligent student practices his smirk as he untangles the problem in four keystrokes, saying “Maybe if you read the note you made last time this happened, you’d be able to fix it yourself”.

“Good. Now John, show us your lecture.”

The students are role-playing. John leans over his “customer”, grabs his hand to stop him moving a mouse, and speaks sternly:

“No sir, you never keep clicking at an icon, that’s as likely to crash the program. Double click and take your hand away.” In character, our customer looks sheepish.

The mechanics’ group is obviously having fun. “When did you last check your oil sir?”
“My oil?”
“You use this device here, have you seen it before?”
“No.”
“It’s called a dipstick, a bit like you.”

“No Henry,” says the teacher. “Never use an actual insult like that on a customer. There are much more subtle ways of doing it.”

He demonstrates the dominant role: “You should check your oil at least every couple of weeks, sir. It’s this thing here - let me show you how it’s done,” and then proceeds with an elaborate pantomime that cracks up the whole team.

The first lecturer is now instructing the electricians’ group. “When you attend a blackout you first ask to see the circuit breaker box. ‘What’s that?’ they’ll say. ‘The thing that cuts off the power before whatever you’re doing kills you’”.

The group titters as he reminisces: “It was much more fun in the days of fuse wire. You should have seen a householder trying to replace a wire with a kitchen knife. You’d split your sides.”

But the champions of the course are the trainee doctors. They have the whole Latin language to play with.

“Now I want you to practice explaining a heart attack.

“Let’s see how quickly you can say: ‘Mrs Smith, your husband has suffered an acute myocardial infarction through an excess of atherosclerotic plaque. However our electrocardiogram shows it can be treated through a percutaneous coronary intervention.’

“Wait for her to nod like she understands a word of it.

“Now if they start to catch on, we fall back to: ‘The ECG of the AMI indicated the efficacy of a PCI.’ That’ll keep them quiet.”

All right let’s be honest, how many of you have suffered intense embarrassment at the hands of this training class? And how many of you would make good instructors in the techniques?

There seems to be an irrepressible urge, when you are an expert, to lord it over the rest. I have been accused of this myself.

Like when I demonstrated a simple computer manoeuvre to my wife for the umpteenth time, to be thanked with the words: “Take that superior smirk off your face!”

Alas most of us don’t need training classes to learn the customer put-downs. But they’re bad for business, and we must all learn a lot more humility.

And wait till there’s a closed door between you and your subject before you explode into a fit of giggles.


ray@ebeatty.com