Do you want your voice to be heard?
Have you ever found yourself saying something to someone only to have it twisted and misrepresented at a later date?
Have you ever played Chinese Whispers? Have you ever been the victim of Chinese Whispers? Silly question because I think we have all been the victim of whispered rumors and twisted words before.
“I Did Not Say That!”
When dealing with rumors or complaints, do you speak out loudly and orally correct the mistakes made?
uh uh bad bad.
That is Not What you Said
Ok how can you prove what I said then?
ahh that is the point. Unless we have proof of the conversation contents via a stenographer or a taped recording then we can’t prove what we said.
Even someone taking notes of a conversation can make errors.
Words transcribed, translated, orated or dictated can be taken out of context and changed. Just like Chinese Whispers too.
“That is not what I said”
I found myself screaming that statement many times lately.
In dealing with everything I am dealing with offline at the moment I have learned one valuable lesson. Well many but the biggest lesson I learned is to
I think I have become the most prolific letter writer in Australia. After hearing statements from people I am dealing with such as “We have never been told that before” “you never told us that before” and “That is not what you said” I decided that the only way I could back myself up and to prove it indeed is exactly “That was what I said” is by writing it down and sending it off in print..
So either way, to prove my point or to prove their point I could easily reference and refer to exactly“What I Said”
“well sir if you refer to my letter dated 16th of October, page 2 line 16 then you can see
THAT IT IS EXACTLY WHAT I SAID“.
I have become silent.
My voice is no longer heard. I no longer spend an hour on the phone to customer complaints. Instead I spend five minutes on hold and find out a fax number, email address or snail mail address of the person I really need to be talking to and can help me.
Speaking of which, don’t you get tired of the rigamarole of phone departments you talk to about any sort of complaint. First you orate your issue to the receptionist and then shes says “hold on please transferring you now”. You wait on hold another fifteen minutes and then relate your tale again to a new dude who sounds like he just got out of high school only to find out that it is not dudes department that you need and he needs to transfer you again. In one phone conversation to Telstra regarding a mistake on my phone bill I usually talk to people In India, Perth, Melbourne, Sydney Brisbane and the person that usually eventually helps me is in downtown Dunedoo, in outback New South Wales with a total population 26.
Time of phone call = One hour forty minutes.
Result of Phone call= Was told to put it in writing and was given an address to send it to.
some people just don’t listen hear or comprehend
preserve it for posterity..
keep the records..
AKA PAPERTRAIL
because
“This is what I said”
Have you ever wished you had written it down?
