Mean People Suck

Sometimes I have to be a cop. I have to go into situations where one of my folks (Remember? I work with independent small business owners) . . . where one of my folks gets sideways with a customer. I usually learn of the flap from the customer who calls me outraged. I listen, encourage the conversation, and neither defemd the business owner nor take sides with the customer. My goal is to get as much information as I can and to allow the customer an opportunity to vent. When I hang up, I immediately call the business owner to get the other side of the story. I come in easy and neutral, usually starting with something like, 'Tell me about the Smiths.' I try to stay conversational and light because I don't want the business owner to feel accused or threatened in any way.

Believe it or not, most times I discover that the customer is wrong (I know, that's supposed to be impossible) and the business owner is weary and frustrated with defending his position. In those cases, I work to broker a solution which usually begins with the business owner giving up a little and ends with everyone being happy.

Sometimes, the business owner is just plain wrong. This is often attributed to a misunderstanding or misconception on the business owners part. In those cases I try to educate the business owner (it's my job, after all), and arrange a face-saving way for the two parties to gain closure on the issue and move forward arm in arm.

This week, I've had a first: a situation where each side was wrong and the business owner, in a near hormonal explosion of epic proportions, latched on to rage and vengence. She did the ultimate in stupid small business owner behavior: she filed suit against her customer!

I got a call from the customer who sounded reasonable and rational. Originally he was demanding to be released from his agreement (we have reason to believe he was being tampered with by a competitor). By the time he called me, he was willing to back off and let his agreement with us run its term. When I called my business owner she hit the roof. She was incensed that I'd even suggest such a thing! No, she was suing this guy and was determined to make an example out of him. Her lawyer husband has read the contract and assures her she will win.

I don't get it at all. Here she refuses to release the customer but also refuses to continue to deliver the services specified in the agreement because 'I'm so angry right now I can't bear to see the guy! He's made it impossible for me to.perform my job!' So she's suing him for her entire fee -- even though she's produced no results and is exerting no effort on his behalf.

I have not been able to convince her that her tough stance will damage her reputation and that of my company in the marketplace, that making an example out of this customer is only going to scare other customers into the arms of our competitors. She was utterly unphazed by my argument that she's way too busy for this nonsense. The time and energy she will expend to recover this one fee will probably cost her two more. This flawless logic only caused her to hang up on me and moments later have her lawyer husband call and rail contract law at me.

All of this creates quite a dilemma for me. This lady, crazy as she is (really: she's nuts), is successful. Her production is excellent and she pays us about $25,000 a year in ongoing fees based on that production. Her tough lady stance is hurting us in her city, though. And it's not just this case. This is the first customer she's sued, but she's badgered, intimidated and threatened several others into paying her fee in similar situations. I'd love to lower the boom on her, demand that she step aside and move on or at least refer the customer to another one of our people. But, remember: she's an independent business person. Aside from paying her fees on time, there's very little else I can require her to do. Or so we think.

When I thanked the husband for his time and hung up the phone, I called our legal department. We reviewed our agreement carefully and there is some language that seems to suggest that she must perform in accordance with our systems and standards of practice. We have a satisfaction guarantee, which allows any customer to get out of any agreement if he is incurably unhappy. She's not adhering to it. So we're talking about terminating her agreement with us, cutting her loose to do her own thing. If we did that, there'd be the equivalent of a small nuclear blast in her mid-western town. She'd absolutely explode. There'd be a dozen suits filed against us by her husband.

Oh, we'd be fine: she'd have little if any case against us. And we could easily replace her in the marketplace with someone more in line with our beliefs. But we're really busy, too. I hate to expend the time and energy to defend ourselves. And, let's not forget that she's productive and she pays us as agreed. Sigh.

Ethics. We all love them until we have to abide by them.

My dad used to pontificate about the unethical behavior of his competitors. But I worked with him for several years and honestly he was the shiftiest person I met in the business at the time. There was always justification for his bad behavior, and it was usually expressed with a lot of self-righteous indignation at his competitors who were getting what they deserved! Remember the clown picture of Emmet Kelley as a golfer, looking up out of a sand trap, his ball held between thumb and forefinger, squinting over his sholder to make sure that nobody's watching as he drops it on the green? When I think of my dad in business, that's what I see.

My company is real. We have a set of eight core values that acutally mean something to us. I know: I've worked in a number of organizations where missions, visions and values were utter horseshit. The statements are usually overly labored gobledegook that say nothing and bear no resemblance to the day to day operation of the company. But in our case, our values are simple, short and real. We actually hold them up in decision making to be sure we're in line with them.

I've just resolved my own dilemma.

The first item on our list of values is this: Integrity.

I have to terminate this lady.