The Definition of Insanity

You know what bugs me? Well I’ll tell you: it’s people who complain ad nauseum about a problem but have absolutely no inclination to work toward a solution. We have had several such people employed here throughout the years, but there’s one rep that, in the words of our esteemed general manager, “really frosts my balls”. Here’s the incident that offended my sensibilities last week: Our sales managers here are very fond of the speakerphone. It seems like every call they take goes on the speaker. I don’t know why they prefer it that way, perhaps they can’t be bothered to pick up the receiver; I don’t know, I don’t care - if anything I get to hear a little more gossip. However, the speaker abuse really bugs one rep here. He carries on and on about how rude & distracting it is. He acts like it’s the scourge of the seafood industry; as if the distraction was so great that it’s removal would cause his sales to triple.

If there were such an impediment to my work I’d find a way to either remove it or work around it. In this case, this reps bellyaching was distracting me, so I went to talk to him about it. I asked him if he’d said anything to the managers about turning down the volume. He said no. I wondered if he’d thought about suggesting they get headsets or shoulder rests to keep their hands free. Again he answered in the negative. Had he even mentioned that the noise was a distraction? No. I recited him one of our favorite fishhouse clichés: “the definition of insanity is doing the same thing but expecting a different result”. If he wasn’t planning on saying anything how did he expect anything to change? At this point he morphed into Captain Passive-Aggressive, and mumbled something about how they’ll never listen to him.

For Pete’s sake people! If you don’t even try how do you know it won’t work? Are you afraid of success? Or is the constant complaining a form of personal entertainment? Whatever it is, fix it and quit frostin’ my balls!