I don’t know about you, but it seems to me that, as a society, we have become less civil with one another. When did it become okay to go off on someone just because they have a different opinion than you or they act in a manner that you don’t approve of?
I witnessed an appalling example of this recently when I had to return an item at the mall. A male in front of me was absolutely brutal to the return clerk, saying how incompetent the store management was, that he would never shop there again, and demanded that she refund his money pronto.
Now at that particular point in time, the clerk was the ONE person who could help this jerk solve his problem, and yet he was giving her absolutely no reason to do so. The old “customer is always right” saw doesn’t mean the employee must take verbal abuse from the customer.
This clerk didn’t lose her cool, but played the “higher authority” gambit, saying that she wasn’t authorized to grant his request; she would have to clear it with her manager, who was out to lunch. That response, obviously, did not calm him down (but I’m reasonably certain it provided the clerk with a degree of satisfaction).
When he was but a teenager, George Washington copied by hand (Well duh! There were no word processors to copy and paste.) 110 Rules of Civility & Decent Behavior in Company and Conversation, which was based on a Jesuit text titled Decency of Conversation Among Men. While many of the rules are dated (some definitely are not), that’s not the point. The point is that as a young man, Washington knew the importance of civility and took a strong step in acting accordingly.
Think of how much more pleasant life would be if there was more civility in society. The only way for that to happen is for each of us to make a conscious effort to being more civil toward each other. And it’s just common sense to treat those who can help us with kindness and civility. And that includes insurance agents.