June 11, 2025 • 27 mins
Being Austic makes everything harder. Including accepting changes sometimes. However, we austic folks also notice more, and I say our culture has been high jacked by corporate culture and its causing people to be dull and mean.
I fear the younger generations have no idea what's happened. So I have requests-- S>L>O>W DOWN so you can pay attention and be more aware. AND THINK-Stick up for everyone and dont let them bamboozle you the way they do all the TIME!. And you might be be part of the problem if you work in customer service.
For more information on names or materials referenced, or to contact Ishe- please email. iabel.hhc@gmail.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hi, I'm Ishi Abel with the HorseHuman Connection Matrix, and I
got some things to talk abouttoday.
I have wanted to avoid rantingbecause ranting is just a bunch
of negative energy.
Sometimes comes on like a firehose that might.
Pacify the person ranting for alittle bit, but it also causes
(00:21):
them to relive everything thatthey've experienced as they're
regurgitating it for whoever'slistening to the rant.
So my intention is not to rant.
My intention is to bring lightto some communication issues and
what it's like to be autistic.
Just another window into theautism bit because I find more
(00:43):
and more as I'm interacting withthe world more and more that I
can pinpoint the patterns I.
That seemed to be causing a lotof problems for a lot of people.
So I just got back from a tripto visit a family member luckily
on Kauai.
And luckily he recovered, but hehad gotten out of the hospital
(01:05):
and I went to help take care ofhim after the hospital stay.
And a number of things happened,planning this trip like in two
days and.
Having all the pieces falltogether, which was great.
They did.
They all fell together.
And some wonderful thingshappened on the trip.
But in getting home and in thetraveling, there were some
(01:26):
communications with people thatI feel are worth talking about.
And some of them aregenerational and some of them
are.
Autistic flavored, and some ofthem are just like, we're doing
the best we can, but sometimeswe just don't get it all.
So the autism piece, many peoplerealize now that one of the
(01:52):
autistic traits, it doesn't meaneverybody has it, but a lot of
people on the spectrum havetrouble with context.
Either when we're.
Telling you something, we don'tgive enough context.
And conversely, when we'rehearing something, the context
that may be obvious to peoplethat are not on the spectrum is
not obvious to us.
(02:14):
So obviously the answer there isto ask more questions both ways
and have people ask questions.
Some of the things I'm gonnacover are.
When is helping, not helping,and when is it okay to help
customer service?
That is not customer service,which has been a pet peeve of
(02:36):
mine for my entire life and myperspective has shifted many
times on it, and so has myemotional response.
So.
And I wanna talk a little bitabout younger people.
For a while I was keeping noteson my phone of ridiculous
(02:56):
customer service things thathappened because we have
literally been boiled in waterlike frogs.
Most people have no idea.
What's happened to customerservice or what it was like for
people of my generation back inthe day.
So I'm gonna have to tell theNordstrom story, and if
(03:18):
Nordstrom's doesn't kick me alittle bit of money back at some
point, the next time I tell theNordstrom story, I may just say
that it was about Macy's.
So I think that's a good placeto start the Nordstrom story.
So this.
Is reportedly a true story thatI read in the newspaper sometime
(03:39):
in the eighties.
And when I grew up in the SanFrancisco Bay area, my closest
shopping center was the StanfordShopping Center, and we had a
Nordstrom's put in in the lateseventies that went in right
next to Sax fifth Avenue.
So here's the story.
This little old lady.
(03:59):
Comes into Nordstrom's with herreceipt in hand, and she comes
to the counter and she says tothe young man behind the
counter, I wanna return this tv.
It's in my car.
And he says, hold on ma'am, justa minute.
He goes in the back and he asksmanager.
So two things about thisalready.
There's somebody who is going toa manager with something he
(04:22):
doesn't know what to do with.
We rarely see that today in anycustomer service.
He goes to the manager.
He says she wants to return thistv.
It's in her car.
She has a receipt.
She paid cash.
What do I do?
The manager says, go down to thecar, bring the TV up from her.
Take the money out of the cashregister.
Keep the receipt, keep the TV,and give her back the cash.
(04:47):
He says, okay.
He does what he's told.
So that's another thing.
He does what he's told withoutasking a lot of questions.
We don't see that a lot today.
He goes down to the car, he getsthe tv, he brings it up, she
follows him up, he opens thecash register, chaching comes
open, the drawer slides.
We don't see that anymoreeither.
(05:08):
He gives her the cash.
We don't see a lot of thatanymore either.
And she hobbles out of thestore.
He goes back to the manager andhe says, now what do I do?
And the manager says, did youdrive today?
And he says, yes.
Will the TV fit in your car?
He says, yes.
Take the tv, put it in your car.
Take the receipt.
(05:29):
Go back to the store she boughtit at and return it.
Get the cash and put it back inour register.
He's like, okay.
Again, he's not asking a lot ofquestions.
He does what the manager tellshim to do.
Nordstrom's doesn't sell TVs.
Take a minute for that to sinkin.
(05:50):
If you're an X, Y, Z person.
Nordstrom's was known for theircustomer service.
When these people that workedfor Nordstrom's did this.
They weren't doing it as apublicity stunt.
This was normal protocol.
This was how they handledcustomers.
I grew up with a saying, thecustomer's always right.
(06:14):
In my generation, when you wentto work for a store, you didn't
argue with a customer.
If you argued with a customer,the manager would come in and
they would fire you.
You might get a warning, but youweren't gonna last very long
because word of mouth wasimportant.
(06:34):
So when I have problems with thecell phone company or somebody
made a mistake on my Maurice'sbill for$4, that cost me a$200,
a 200 point drop on my creditscore.
They're gonna listen to theNordstrom story when I called to
straighten things out because wedidn't grow up with this.
Why is it this way now?
(06:57):
It's like this.
And again, I don't want this tobe around.
I wanna focus on what'spositive, but this is a result
of corporate culture.
This came in when companies gotreally big and decided that the
customer wasn't always right,and they started training people
on purpose to be evasive on thephone, to read from a script.
(07:22):
To stay scripted, to record thephone calls.
This call may be recorded inorder for training purposes, how
to deal with difficult people,how to deal with a customer
that's not happy.
In the old days, it wasplacating.
(07:43):
Then we got to the point wherepeople were active listening to
the person.
These days, there's.
A lot of avoidance, a lot ofshoving around, and with one
company in particular, evensystematic hangups hold times to
hang up.
That would be, and I have noproblem saying this because I
went around the corner withthese people that would be
HughesNet.
(08:03):
We purposely put you on hold andthen hang up af on you after 45
minutes, and if you call back,they do it again rather than
send you to a manager ratherthan to address a problem.
That's true.
So how does this affect ustalking to each other?
How does this affect theinteractions we have in a
(08:24):
personal way?
People that are leaning intoavoidance to begin with feel a
lot more permission to do it.
Just change the subject.
Don't answer that question.
And if you're autistic, it'seven more frustrating because
we're not wired that way.
At least I'm not.
(08:49):
So one of the tasks I needed todeal with when I came back was I
have a paddleboard.
It's my second seasonpaddleboarding.
I absolutely love it.
I got a new paddleboard and theinstructions were not clear.
The fins have a weird littlescrew that takes a special
little key tool to screw it in,and they came with one screw and
(09:10):
two holes, and they told me thatwas in case it got stripped out.
And I thought, really, thisdoesn't seem right.
It took me forever to find thelittle tool'cause it wasn't
mentioned where it was in theinstructions.
I emailed with the place, theyemailed me back, said, oh no,
that's the way it's supposed tobe.
There's only one screw.
I followed the directions I putthem in, I screwed them tight.
I tested them with my hand, Itook it down the river and I
(09:32):
lost a fin.
So I came back and I emailedthem again and in the email.
Instead of telling me that thefins were back ordered, they
told me they would send them tome, and then they sent me
another email that came from adifferent place that was spam
that told me they were backordered and.
(10:03):
There was some pushback.
There was some pushback in theemail.
It wasn't clean, it wasn'tcustomer service.
And then I called them and Itried to get ahold of them, and
they were out at some paddleboarding events for two
consecutive weekends orsomething, so there was no one,
or maybe it was for a wholeweek, and they were closed that
week, so there was nowhere thereto answer the phone.
(10:25):
So again, from my generation, ifyou're running a business and
you wanna go take part insomething that might be good for
your business, it's a good ideato leave somebody to manage your
phones because your customerbase may not really appreciate
the customer service that you'renot providing.
(10:47):
Or when is it okay to ask thesedays for customer service?
When is it okay?
So.
Finally got ahold of thesepeople today and when I
explained the situation, therewas quite a bit of pushback
about how it was my faultbecause I might not have checked
my junk folder for the separateemail that would've explained
(11:09):
part of the context to thesituation with the fin and why I
got four screws in the mail.
And not the fins.
Well, what I don't think theyrealized is it was making them
look really bad, saying theywere gonna do something and then
not doing it.
And it makes'em look really bad,not including a piece of
information in the email whenthey know full well apparently
(11:30):
that the spam email is probablygonna get stuck in my spam
folder, and they did not signit.
So that's another thing I'venoticed with customer service
emails recently, the employees.
Are afraid to sign their name.
(11:50):
That wouldn't have happened inthe old days.
Your family name meantsomething.
If you treated someone rudely oryou did something disgraceful,
it wasn't just you, it yourwhole family that was gonna be
affected.
(12:11):
If you don't feel like you cansign an email at your workplace
because of customer backlash, itprobably means you're not doing
something ethical or you're notdoing something in a way that is
in alignment with how we wannatreat each other.
If you can't put your namebehind what comes outta your
(12:34):
mouth, we should be questioning.
The people that are asking us torespond to each other this way,
and that's what I mean by beingboiled like frogs.
It turned up the temperature andnobody noticed.
Nobody noticed that it's notokay to be proud of who you are
(13:00):
as you interact with people.
We're in some serious troublehere, but.
If we become aware of what'shappening and we push back on
the policies that demand that webehave unethically, we can
(13:22):
recover.
And that's what the podcast ishere.
It's about dominance, right?
Just the way we train horseswith dominance, we need to stop
training people with dominanceand people need to stop being
sheep.
It needs to be okay to say whatyou're doing isn't okay.
(13:45):
Treating people like that isn'tokay.
I see a lot with youngergenerations too.
The problem in this scenariowith the paddleboard is I
believe that being on a deviceall the time, the way we listen
(14:09):
to music for 60 seconds at atime, and then there's a new
song, the way younger people,because of our devices, their
minds are being reconstructed toonly pay attention for 20 to 60
seconds.
Of course they're gonna miss thelarger context.
Of course, they're not gonna fitall of the pieces together.
(14:30):
I see this almost every time nowthat I have conversations with
younger people, they don'tunderstand that they're not
explaining the whole thing andit doesn't matter to them.
Or they become so entrenched inthinking that if they support
their employer.
Refusing to take something back,refusing to have a conversation
(14:54):
with people.
I had, I had one incident at anApplebee's where, and it was
right after COVID COVID changedeverything.
Like we don't complain anymore.
You just eat the food that theybrought you, even if it's not
close to what you ordered orclose to being prepared.
Like, okay, but this was so bad.
This was chicken fettuccine thatwas uncooked.
(15:17):
And it had been sitting under anot warm heat lamp.
It was cold.
It's a dairy product, it'spoultry that was not cooked all
the way through.
It would've been dangerous toeat it, and I didn't wanna make
a fuss.
Normally restaurants cook alltheir baked potatoes at four or
five o'clock, and they got somebaked potatoes sitting around.
I said, could you just bring mea baked potato instead, please?
(15:38):
What I got was a waitress thatthought she was a real estate
agent and she wanted tonegotiate with me.
I am asking for something superreasonable.
They said they were shorthandedin the kitchen.
Okay, I get that.
I'm, I'm not asking for a lot,just a potato.
You could do it like that.
So when she came back tonegotiate with me for the third
(16:00):
time, I got it from the tableand I went back and I found the
manager and I had a conversationwith the manager.
She was having a really bad day.
She had three cooks walk out onher all at once.
I get it.
These things happen.
But if you have three cooks walkout at you on you all at once,
it probably means they'reprotesting something that
(16:22):
shouldn't have happened.
Again, back to treating peoplelike people back again to
corporate culture, that wouldnever happen.
At least I don't believe itwould happen in a small
restaurant.
A family owned restaurant, arestaurant owned by a few
people.
That treat their employees likemore like family.
(16:47):
So yeah, we're in some troubleand if we don't start slowing
down bulking at dominance,finding some ways to talk to
people like people and explainto them what's happening, it's
gonna get worse, I'm afraid.
(17:11):
So here's another story.
I know some people in recoveryand someone was telling me a
story about a sponsee that theyhad, and at the time I was
thinking, wow, it is really hardto know where the line is.
(17:33):
Where is the line between notenabling somebody?
But being compassionate andhelpful without taking the
person's responsibility anddignity away, allowing them to
make some of their own choicesand fail enough to want to get
(17:57):
back on their feet.
And I think a lot of peoplestruggle with this too.
I am proud that I did threeyears in Al-Anon.
I have been in relationshipswith people in recovery, and
I've been to a lot of 12 stepmeetings, and I think it's a
great program.
So what this person was tellingme is, I'll regurgitate the
(18:21):
story, but it may not be exact,right, because this is like
secondhand.
But apparently there wassomebody, a sponsee, who was
struggling with relapse and hadgone out but wanted to be
included, and the group wasgoing out to have some
appetizers and the personsponsoring them wanted to be
(18:44):
very kind and include them eventhough there was a struggle and,
and so they did.
And it ended up with the personnot being able to control their
bowels in, in someone else'scar.
And then again, in therestaurant not understanding
what was going on over orderingand, and the whole thing was
(19:08):
more than a mess, inconveniencedeverybody there, but there was
kindness and there wasinclusion.
And yeah, it's a hard line.
Would would the person make theinvitation and include them
again?
I don't know, but it brings upthis edge of when do you shun
(19:33):
people?
I, for their own good.
And when do you include them?
When do you reach out?
When someone's really, reallyhaving a hard time.
And be the hand that makes adifference or be the hand that
maybe saves their life.
(19:53):
Where, where is the edge?
We don't really know.
A lot of people struggle withthis a and unfortunately some
people fall off the edge andunfortunately some people err
always on the side of help andpeople don't get better.
(20:16):
Because there's too much help,which we call enabling.
I, I think if we slow down andfind a way to listen to our
hearts and our heads, that maybethat's part of the answer for
that line, for that edge, wealways have to take care of
ourselves.
I fully agree that being ofservice usually means some
(20:41):
degree of sacrifice.
Not so much that it costs toomuch.
And how is that like customerservice?
I, I'm not quite sure.
Why do these belong in the samepodcast?
I'm not quite sure, but it seemslike they do, because what we're
talking about is context.
What we're talking about isasking questions.
(21:04):
If in any of those customerservice issues, we can say
what's true.
Name what's happening, stay calmand help co-regulate each other
in those awkward conflict andconfrontation moments.
(21:29):
Maybe.
Maybe the answers are there, butwe have to remember, we have to
keep remembering how to ask thequestions and.
One of the things that the, thepaddleboard guy had said to me
when I brought to his attentionthat he had just blamed me for
not getting the email, notlooking in my junk folder, not
(21:50):
knowing that the fins were outof, you know outta stock.
And he offered me somethingelse.
He offered me, oh, I can sendyou a link to the catalog and
then you can choose a differentpair and we'll give you those.
And I was trying to keep him onthe phone because he was rushing
to get off the phone with me.
Long enough to realize that hisattitude was affecting the
(22:12):
conversation tremendously longenough to realize that I'm
asking for some help thatsomeone else from his company
had provided in the past byconsulting about the board, the
fins, the other things thatthey're supposed to be experts
about.
And I finally got him to slowdown enough to give me the
advice on and, and break downwhat fins I might get instead of
(22:34):
redirecting me.
To a digital marketing thingthat was bound to go wrong and
resulted in me having to callback or contact them again.
That held the potential forthings to go wrong again.
Again, rushing and rushing andblaming, and then he said
something.
I said, well, now you're beingbrewed.
And he said, I'm just meetingyou where you are.
(23:00):
And I had a bit to say aboutthat because.
As Carissa has explained acouple of times in other
podcasts that meeting you whereyou are comes from.
Horse training is utilized inpsychology, but not with the
application he was saying atall.
What that means is I'm gonnafind where you are emotionally.
(23:23):
I'm gonna meet you at thatregulation and help you come
down together.
It doesn't mean you arecombative, so I'll be combative
and that'll fix it.
'cause I guarantee that's notgonna fix it.
I guarantee it.
And any corporate culture,corporate culture that is
teaching that combativeness isthe way to handle these
(23:48):
situations is absolutely wrong.
I had a run in with my doctor'speople, and I had a run in with
somebody that worked for anattorney that I was working
with.
In both cases, the doctor andthe lawyer scolded me, an
(24:11):
autistic person who was beingtreated badly by their staff f,
which I balked at.
It is not okay to do that.
It's absolutely 100% not okay todo that.
(24:31):
Not only did the customer alwaysused to be, right, but we used
to treat people with kindnessand we used to do what we said
we were gonna do.
And when people that work fordoctors or lawyers or
paddleboard companies don't dowhat they say they're gonna do.
(24:56):
This is helping the world fallapart and we can fix it.
They're little teeny steps.
It starts with slowing down sothat you can become aware of how
your interactions affect otherpeople, and most of all, how you
are contributing to them.
(25:18):
There's signs up at hospitalsand places of business that say
zero tolerance for any anger oroutburst.
That's a mistake to think thatavoidance, a shunning are the
answer to people's trauma.
(25:39):
To think that not treatingcustomers.
Correctly or compassionately oreven like humans and being ready
to dismiss them or have themphysically hauled off off of
your premise because yourcustomer service people have
forgotten how to be human.
(26:07):
It's a problem.
I want people to understandneurodivergence better.
I want people to slow down.
I want these youngergenerations, the X, Y, Z,
whatever.
I'd like you to get off yourdevice and I'd like you to spend
time with humans, women's, andI'd like you to think about
(26:30):
communicating an entire, anentirety of whatever the
situation.
Is comprised of because thisquick swiping through situations
is hurting you and it's hurtingus and it's hurting our culture.
(26:55):
You can't swipe, skip, avoid,and delete these things.
They have to be worked through.
There's a lot of energy beingupset about these things, and
(27:17):
when you're autistic, there area lot of autistic people that
there don't go out of theirhomes because one or two of
these a day will send you intotears and over the edge and into
some serious overwhelm.
And I think maybe part of thereason why people are realizing
(27:40):
that they're autistic is becausethe world is getting harder and
harder to live in.
Not just for us, but for youguys too.
For everybody.
So let's do what we can to slowdown and be kind.
Hi, I'm Ishi Abel with the HorseHuman Connection Matrix, and I
got some things to talk abouttoday.
I have wanted to avoid rantingbecause ranting is just a bunch
of negative energy.
Sometimes comes on like a firehose that might.
Pacify the person ranting for alittle bit, but it also causes
(00:21):
them to relive everything thatthey've experienced as they're
regurgitating it for whoever'slistening to the rant.
So my intention is not to rant.
My intention is to bring lightto some communication issues and
what it's like to be autistic.
Just another window into theautism bit because I find more
(00:43):
and more as I'm interacting withthe world more and more that I
can pinpoint the patterns I.
That seemed to be causing a lotof problems for a lot of people.
So I just got back from a tripto visit a family member luckily
on Kauai.
And luckily he recovered, but hehad gotten out of the hospital
(01:05):
and I went to help take care ofhim after the hospital stay.
And a number of things happened,planning this trip like in two
days and.
Having all the pieces falltogether, which was great.
They did.
They all fell together.
And some wonderful thingshappened on the trip.
But in getting home and in thetraveling, there were some
(01:26):
communications with people thatI feel are worth talking about.
And some of them aregenerational and some of them
are.
Autistic flavored, and some ofthem are just like, we're doing
the best we can, but sometimeswe just don't get it all.
So the autism piece, many peoplerealize now that one of the
(01:52):
autistic traits, it doesn't meaneverybody has it, but a lot of
people on the spectrum havetrouble with context.
Either when we're.
Telling you something, we don'tgive enough context.
And conversely, when we'rehearing something, the context
that may be obvious to peoplethat are not on the spectrum is
not obvious to us.
(02:14):
So obviously the answer there isto ask more questions both ways
and have people ask questions.
Some of the things I'm gonnacover are.
When is helping, not helping,and when is it okay to help
customer service?
That is not customer service,which has been a pet peeve of
(02:36):
mine for my entire life and myperspective has shifted many
times on it, and so has myemotional response.
So.
And I wanna talk a little bitabout younger people.
For a while I was keeping noteson my phone of ridiculous
(02:56):
customer service things thathappened because we have
literally been boiled in waterlike frogs.
Most people have no idea.
What's happened to customerservice or what it was like for
people of my generation back inthe day.
So I'm gonna have to tell theNordstrom story, and if
(03:18):
Nordstrom's doesn't kick me alittle bit of money back at some
point, the next time I tell theNordstrom story, I may just say
that it was about Macy's.
So I think that's a good placeto start the Nordstrom story.
So this.
Is reportedly a true story thatI read in the newspaper sometime
(03:39):
in the eighties.
And when I grew up in the SanFrancisco Bay area, my closest
shopping center was the StanfordShopping Center, and we had a
Nordstrom's put in in the lateseventies that went in right
next to Sax fifth Avenue.
So here's the story.
This little old lady.
(03:59):
Comes into Nordstrom's with herreceipt in hand, and she comes
to the counter and she says tothe young man behind the
counter, I wanna return this tv.
It's in my car.
And he says, hold on ma'am, justa minute.
He goes in the back and he asksmanager.
So two things about thisalready.
There's somebody who is going toa manager with something he
(04:22):
doesn't know what to do with.
We rarely see that today in anycustomer service.
He goes to the manager.
He says she wants to return thistv.
It's in her car.
She has a receipt.
She paid cash.
What do I do?
The manager says, go down to thecar, bring the TV up from her.
Take the money out of the cashregister.
Keep the receipt, keep the TV,and give her back the cash.
(04:47):
He says, okay.
He does what he's told.
So that's another thing.
He does what he's told withoutasking a lot of questions.
We don't see that a lot today.
He goes down to the car, he getsthe tv, he brings it up, she
follows him up, he opens thecash register, chaching comes
open, the drawer slides.
We don't see that anymoreeither.
(05:08):
He gives her the cash.
We don't see a lot of thatanymore either.
And she hobbles out of thestore.
He goes back to the manager andhe says, now what do I do?
And the manager says, did youdrive today?
And he says, yes.
Will the TV fit in your car?
He says, yes.
Take the tv, put it in your car.
Take the receipt.
(05:29):
Go back to the store she boughtit at and return it.
Get the cash and put it back inour register.
He's like, okay.
Again, he's not asking a lot ofquestions.
He does what the manager tellshim to do.
Nordstrom's doesn't sell TVs.
Take a minute for that to sinkin.
(05:50):
If you're an X, Y, Z person.
Nordstrom's was known for theircustomer service.
When these people that workedfor Nordstrom's did this.
They weren't doing it as apublicity stunt.
This was normal protocol.
This was how they handledcustomers.
I grew up with a saying, thecustomer's always right.
(06:14):
In my generation, when you wentto work for a store, you didn't
argue with a customer.
If you argued with a customer,the manager would come in and
they would fire you.
You might get a warning, but youweren't gonna last very long
because word of mouth wasimportant.
(06:34):
So when I have problems with thecell phone company or somebody
made a mistake on my Maurice'sbill for$4, that cost me a$200,
a 200 point drop on my creditscore.
They're gonna listen to theNordstrom story when I called to
straighten things out because wedidn't grow up with this.
Why is it this way now?
(06:57):
It's like this.
And again, I don't want this tobe around.
I wanna focus on what'spositive, but this is a result
of corporate culture.
This came in when companies gotreally big and decided that the
customer wasn't always right,and they started training people
on purpose to be evasive on thephone, to read from a script.
(07:22):
To stay scripted, to record thephone calls.
This call may be recorded inorder for training purposes, how
to deal with difficult people,how to deal with a customer
that's not happy.
In the old days, it wasplacating.
(07:43):
Then we got to the point wherepeople were active listening to
the person.
These days, there's.
A lot of avoidance, a lot ofshoving around, and with one
company in particular, evensystematic hangups hold times to
hang up.
That would be, and I have noproblem saying this because I
went around the corner withthese people that would be
HughesNet.
(08:03):
We purposely put you on hold andthen hang up af on you after 45
minutes, and if you call back,they do it again rather than
send you to a manager ratherthan to address a problem.
That's true.
So how does this affect ustalking to each other?
How does this affect theinteractions we have in a
(08:24):
personal way?
People that are leaning intoavoidance to begin with feel a
lot more permission to do it.
Just change the subject.
Don't answer that question.
And if you're autistic, it'seven more frustrating because
we're not wired that way.
At least I'm not.
(08:49):
So one of the tasks I needed todeal with when I came back was I
have a paddleboard.
It's my second seasonpaddleboarding.
I absolutely love it.
I got a new paddleboard and theinstructions were not clear.
The fins have a weird littlescrew that takes a special
little key tool to screw it in,and they came with one screw and
(09:10):
two holes, and they told me thatwas in case it got stripped out.
And I thought, really, thisdoesn't seem right.
It took me forever to find thelittle tool'cause it wasn't
mentioned where it was in theinstructions.
I emailed with the place, theyemailed me back, said, oh no,
that's the way it's supposed tobe.
There's only one screw.
I followed the directions I putthem in, I screwed them tight.
I tested them with my hand, Itook it down the river and I
(09:32):
lost a fin.
So I came back and I emailedthem again and in the email.
Instead of telling me that thefins were back ordered, they
told me they would send them tome, and then they sent me
another email that came from adifferent place that was spam
that told me they were backordered and.
(10:03):
There was some pushback.
There was some pushback in theemail.
It wasn't clean, it wasn'tcustomer service.
And then I called them and Itried to get ahold of them, and
they were out at some paddleboarding events for two
consecutive weekends orsomething, so there was no one,
or maybe it was for a wholeweek, and they were closed that
week, so there was nowhere thereto answer the phone.
(10:25):
So again, from my generation, ifyou're running a business and
you wanna go take part insomething that might be good for
your business, it's a good ideato leave somebody to manage your
phones because your customerbase may not really appreciate
the customer service that you'renot providing.
(10:47):
Or when is it okay to ask thesedays for customer service?
When is it okay?
So.
Finally got ahold of thesepeople today and when I
explained the situation, therewas quite a bit of pushback
about how it was my faultbecause I might not have checked
my junk folder for the separateemail that would've explained
(11:09):
part of the context to thesituation with the fin and why I
got four screws in the mail.
And not the fins.
Well, what I don't think theyrealized is it was making them
look really bad, saying theywere gonna do something and then
not doing it.
And it makes'em look really bad,not including a piece of
information in the email whenthey know full well apparently
(11:30):
that the spam email is probablygonna get stuck in my spam
folder, and they did not signit.
So that's another thing I'venoticed with customer service
emails recently, the employees.
Are afraid to sign their name.
(11:50):
That wouldn't have happened inthe old days.
Your family name meantsomething.
If you treated someone rudely oryou did something disgraceful,
it wasn't just you, it yourwhole family that was gonna be
affected.
(12:11):
If you don't feel like you cansign an email at your workplace
because of customer backlash, itprobably means you're not doing
something ethical or you're notdoing something in a way that is
in alignment with how we wannatreat each other.
If you can't put your namebehind what comes outta your
(12:34):
mouth, we should be questioning.
The people that are asking us torespond to each other this way,
and that's what I mean by beingboiled like frogs.
It turned up the temperature andnobody noticed.
Nobody noticed that it's notokay to be proud of who you are
(13:00):
as you interact with people.
We're in some serious troublehere, but.
If we become aware of what'shappening and we push back on
the policies that demand that webehave unethically, we can
(13:22):
recover.
And that's what the podcast ishere.
It's about dominance, right?
Just the way we train horseswith dominance, we need to stop
training people with dominanceand people need to stop being
sheep.
It needs to be okay to say whatyou're doing isn't okay.
(13:45):
Treating people like that isn'tokay.
I see a lot with youngergenerations too.
The problem in this scenariowith the paddleboard is I
believe that being on a deviceall the time, the way we listen
(14:09):
to music for 60 seconds at atime, and then there's a new
song, the way younger people,because of our devices, their
minds are being reconstructed toonly pay attention for 20 to 60
seconds.
Of course they're gonna miss thelarger context.
Of course, they're not gonna fitall of the pieces together.
(14:30):
I see this almost every time nowthat I have conversations with
younger people, they don'tunderstand that they're not
explaining the whole thing andit doesn't matter to them.
Or they become so entrenched inthinking that if they support
their employer.
Refusing to take something back,refusing to have a conversation
(14:54):
with people.
I had, I had one incident at anApplebee's where, and it was
right after COVID COVID changedeverything.
Like we don't complain anymore.
You just eat the food that theybrought you, even if it's not
close to what you ordered orclose to being prepared.
Like, okay, but this was so bad.
This was chicken fettuccine thatwas uncooked.
(15:17):
And it had been sitting under anot warm heat lamp.
It was cold.
It's a dairy product, it'spoultry that was not cooked all
the way through.
It would've been dangerous toeat it, and I didn't wanna make
a fuss.
Normally restaurants cook alltheir baked potatoes at four or
five o'clock, and they got somebaked potatoes sitting around.
I said, could you just bring mea baked potato instead, please?
(15:38):
What I got was a waitress thatthought she was a real estate
agent and she wanted tonegotiate with me.
I am asking for something superreasonable.
They said they were shorthandedin the kitchen.
Okay, I get that.
I'm, I'm not asking for a lot,just a potato.
You could do it like that.
So when she came back tonegotiate with me for the third
(16:00):
time, I got it from the tableand I went back and I found the
manager and I had a conversationwith the manager.
She was having a really bad day.
She had three cooks walk out onher all at once.
I get it.
These things happen.
But if you have three cooks walkout at you on you all at once,
it probably means they'reprotesting something that
(16:22):
shouldn't have happened.
Again, back to treating peoplelike people back again to
corporate culture, that wouldnever happen.
At least I don't believe itwould happen in a small
restaurant.
A family owned restaurant, arestaurant owned by a few
people.
That treat their employees likemore like family.
(16:47):
So yeah, we're in some troubleand if we don't start slowing
down bulking at dominance,finding some ways to talk to
people like people and explainto them what's happening, it's
gonna get worse, I'm afraid.
(17:11):
So here's another story.
I know some people in recoveryand someone was telling me a
story about a sponsee that theyhad, and at the time I was
thinking, wow, it is really hardto know where the line is.
(17:33):
Where is the line between notenabling somebody?
But being compassionate andhelpful without taking the
person's responsibility anddignity away, allowing them to
make some of their own choicesand fail enough to want to get
(17:57):
back on their feet.
And I think a lot of peoplestruggle with this too.
I am proud that I did threeyears in Al-Anon.
I have been in relationshipswith people in recovery, and
I've been to a lot of 12 stepmeetings, and I think it's a
great program.
So what this person was tellingme is, I'll regurgitate the
(18:21):
story, but it may not be exact,right, because this is like
secondhand.
But apparently there wassomebody, a sponsee, who was
struggling with relapse and hadgone out but wanted to be
included, and the group wasgoing out to have some
appetizers and the personsponsoring them wanted to be
(18:44):
very kind and include them eventhough there was a struggle and,
and so they did.
And it ended up with the personnot being able to control their
bowels in, in someone else'scar.
And then again, in therestaurant not understanding
what was going on over orderingand, and the whole thing was
(19:08):
more than a mess, inconveniencedeverybody there, but there was
kindness and there wasinclusion.
And yeah, it's a hard line.
Would would the person make theinvitation and include them
again?
I don't know, but it brings upthis edge of when do you shun
(19:33):
people?
I, for their own good.
And when do you include them?
When do you reach out?
When someone's really, reallyhaving a hard time.
And be the hand that makes adifference or be the hand that
maybe saves their life.
(19:53):
Where, where is the edge?
We don't really know.
A lot of people struggle withthis a and unfortunately some
people fall off the edge andunfortunately some people err
always on the side of help andpeople don't get better.
(20:16):
Because there's too much help,which we call enabling.
I, I think if we slow down andfind a way to listen to our
hearts and our heads, that maybethat's part of the answer for
that line, for that edge, wealways have to take care of
ourselves.
I fully agree that being ofservice usually means some
(20:41):
degree of sacrifice.
Not so much that it costs toomuch.
And how is that like customerservice?
I, I'm not quite sure.
Why do these belong in the samepodcast?
I'm not quite sure, but it seemslike they do, because what we're
talking about is context.
What we're talking about isasking questions.
(21:04):
If in any of those customerservice issues, we can say
what's true.
Name what's happening, stay calmand help co-regulate each other
in those awkward conflict andconfrontation moments.
(21:29):
Maybe.
Maybe the answers are there, butwe have to remember, we have to
keep remembering how to ask thequestions and.
One of the things that the, thepaddleboard guy had said to me
when I brought to his attentionthat he had just blamed me for
not getting the email, notlooking in my junk folder, not
(21:50):
knowing that the fins were outof, you know outta stock.
And he offered me somethingelse.
He offered me, oh, I can sendyou a link to the catalog and
then you can choose a differentpair and we'll give you those.
And I was trying to keep him onthe phone because he was rushing
to get off the phone with me.
Long enough to realize that hisattitude was affecting the
(22:12):
conversation tremendously longenough to realize that I'm
asking for some help thatsomeone else from his company
had provided in the past byconsulting about the board, the
fins, the other things thatthey're supposed to be experts
about.
And I finally got him to slowdown enough to give me the
advice on and, and break downwhat fins I might get instead of
(22:34):
redirecting me.
To a digital marketing thingthat was bound to go wrong and
resulted in me having to callback or contact them again.
That held the potential forthings to go wrong again.
Again, rushing and rushing andblaming, and then he said
something.
I said, well, now you're beingbrewed.
And he said, I'm just meetingyou where you are.
(23:00):
And I had a bit to say aboutthat because.
As Carissa has explained acouple of times in other
podcasts that meeting you whereyou are comes from.
Horse training is utilized inpsychology, but not with the
application he was saying atall.
What that means is I'm gonnafind where you are emotionally.
(23:23):
I'm gonna meet you at thatregulation and help you come
down together.
It doesn't mean you arecombative, so I'll be combative
and that'll fix it.
'cause I guarantee that's notgonna fix it.
I guarantee it.
And any corporate culture,corporate culture that is
teaching that combativeness isthe way to handle these
(23:48):
situations is absolutely wrong.
I had a run in with my doctor'speople, and I had a run in with
somebody that worked for anattorney that I was working
with.
In both cases, the doctor andthe lawyer scolded me, an
(24:11):
autistic person who was beingtreated badly by their staff f,
which I balked at.
It is not okay to do that.
It's absolutely 100% not okay todo that.
(24:31):
Not only did the customer alwaysused to be, right, but we used
to treat people with kindnessand we used to do what we said
we were gonna do.
And when people that work fordoctors or lawyers or
paddleboard companies don't dowhat they say they're gonna do.
(24:56):
This is helping the world fallapart and we can fix it.
They're little teeny steps.
It starts with slowing down sothat you can become aware of how
your interactions affect otherpeople, and most of all, how you
are contributing to them.
(25:18):
There's signs up at hospitalsand places of business that say
zero tolerance for any anger oroutburst.
That's a mistake to think thatavoidance, a shunning are the
answer to people's trauma.
(25:39):
To think that not treatingcustomers.
Correctly or compassionately oreven like humans and being ready
to dismiss them or have themphysically hauled off off of
your premise because yourcustomer service people have
forgotten how to be human.
(26:07):
It's a problem.
I want people to understandneurodivergence better.
I want people to slow down.
I want these youngergenerations, the X, Y, Z,
whatever.
I'd like you to get off yourdevice and I'd like you to spend
time with humans, women's, andI'd like you to think about
(26:30):
communicating an entire, anentirety of whatever the
situation.
Is comprised of because thisquick swiping through situations
is hurting you and it's hurtingus and it's hurting our culture.
(26:55):
You can't swipe, skip, avoid,and delete these things.
They have to be worked through.
There's a lot of energy beingupset about these things, and
(27:17):
when you're autistic, there area lot of autistic people that
there don't go out of theirhomes because one or two of
these a day will send you intotears and over the edge and into
some serious overwhelm.
And I think maybe part of thereason why people are realizing
(27:40):
that they're autistic is becausethe world is getting harder and
harder to live in.
Not just for us, but for youguys too.
For everybody.
So let's do what we can to slowdown and be kind.
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