Episode 034: "Vinegar & Honey”

"Vinegar & Honey” Each summer my daughter gets the opportunity to spend a week with her cousins up in WA during her vacation. A couple years ago, I booked her flight and in the process I declined “Trip Protection”. Who needs that? I had everything under control, trip protection would be a waste of money. …or so I thought. About a week later I find out that her 6th grade orientation was scheduled during the last 2 days of her vacation. So now, I needed change her flight. I call the airline and tell the agent that I need to switch her flight. The agent immediately tells me that it will be $75 to change it, plus the difference in flight which was about $50. Flight protection for $20 didn’t seem so bad at this point. “Are you kidding me?” I yelled into the phone. “It would be cheaper just to buy a new flight” My immediate reaction was to be pissed off. I didn’t let up, I kept digging at her telling her what a joke it was. I finally hung up, accomplishing nothing but an increase in my blood pressure. And the worst part was that it wasn’t even the agents fault. I knew better. I let myself cool down over the next couple days and gave the airline a call back. Thankfully, I got a different agent. I was embarrassed that she’d remember me. With the new agent I led in with a story about how my daughter gets to see her cousins every summer but unfortunately this trip needed to be cut short. “We found out after we booked the flight that her 6th grade orientation was scheduled at the same time” I then proceeded to tell her how important I thought it was for her to be there. “It’s going to be her first year in middle school, I can imagine what a difficult time in a young girl’s life this can be and I just want to make sure that the transition is as smooth as possible”. She agreed with me and responded, “Sir, I am going to waive the $75 change fee, you’ll just need to pay the difference of the flight” I didn’t even ask her to remove it. This is the power of story. The 1st agent, I just yelled at like a jerk. I didn’t inspire her or make her feel any emotion other than hating me. The 2nd agent likely remembered a time when she was entering something new for the first time, maybe even middle school and knew the struggle. She felt emotion and was inspired to help a little girl during a stressful time. Plus, we’ve all heard the saying, “You catch more flies with honey than vinegar”. Mix a little honey with a good story and you can inspire anyone.