Buzzing Around a Bee Problem

For the past two years I have chaired a committee for the Metro Atlanta Beekeepers Association that provides "Goody Bags" for the short course we offer in beginning beekeeping every January. I requested a donation of items for the bags from the National Honey Board last fall. They gladly complied and sent me items donated for the bags.......

and have continually billed me for the items on a regular basis ever since. Each time I get a bill, I call and get it supposedly straightened out. Today I received a bill with a large red notice that said:
Final Notice Before Credit Bureau is Notified.

In assertiveness, the general policy to is to start with basic assertive statements, increasing the intensity as needed. Originally I called and said, "I'm confused. I requested that you donate these items to my club. Your representative acknowledged that this is something the National Honey Board is glad to do to support new beekeepers. To my surprise, I have received a bill for the donated items. I don't want to pay for items you donated to us."

That phone call included basic assertive statements:
"I requested that you donate.....
"I received a bill for the donated items.....
" I don't want to pay for the items.....

The second time I received a bill, a firmer assertive statement was warranted. In that phone call, I said, "We wouldn't request items from you for the goody bag, if we expected to be billed. We are promoting your organization by putting these items in our Goody Bag. I don't think I should be charged for your donation to promote your organization."

(Although this isn't exactly an escalating assertion, it does state rather directly that we would not ask them for items which we would have to purchase.) An escalating assertion has a consequence in it. This is mildly escalating because there is an implied consequence...no more support for their organization from our bee club, or at least from me as a Director on the board of the bee club.

Now not only is this the third time I have been billed, but the bill from the National Honey Board included a threat. Most situations escalate in a balanced way. The National Honey Board has threatened me, so I will respond at the same level by including in my letter an escalating assertion as well as a confrontive assertion.

I wrote the following letter which I will fax to the National Honey Board tomorrow:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
National Honey Board
11409 Business Park Cir
Suite 210
Firestone, CO 80504

July 14, 2008

Re: Invoice XXXXX

To Whom it May Concern:

I am a member of the Board of Directors of the Metro Atlanta Beekeepers Association in Atlanta, GA. Each year we hold a short course for upcoming beekeepers and each year we give the attendants at that short course a “goody bag” full of beekeeping items. Every year we request a donation from the National Honey Board of pamphlets appropriate for the Goody Bag.

I was chair of the Goody Bag project for 2007-2008. I called the National Honey Board in the fall of 2007, requesting that you donate something for the Goody Bag. The person to whom I spoke said that the National Honey Board regularly does this for clubs and would gladly send me some items. She asked how many I would need and I requested 65 items of whatever you chose to donate.

I received the items in December 2007. Since then I have received three bills for the items you supposedly “donated” to our short course. When each of the first two bills arrived, I called the National Honey Board and explained that you had donated the items. Each time I was assured that I didn’t need to worry about or pay the bill and that you would make sure that I was not billed again.

Today I arrived at home to find a bill stamped: Final Notice Before Credit Bureau Is Notified.

I feel deep regret that I ever called you to request your help with our short course. You told me yourself that you donated items to clubs for the purpose of short courses and would be glad to donate the items to me. Now you are threatening to report me to the credit bureau for not paying a bill that I do not owe.

If I am the chair of the Goody Bag committee again (I’ve done it for the past two years), I will not ever again request anything from your organization and I will not be speaking kindly of your group going forward.

Please CANCEL THIS BILL and do not even think of reporting me to the Credit Bureau. And since I keep receiving bills despite your continued verbal agreement that I do not owe the money, I would like a written letter to acknowledge that I do not owe this money.

Linda D Tillman, PhD

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A confrontive assertion is one in which an agreement was made and the other party has broken the agreement. In this type of assertion, you state what the agreement was, how it was broken and what will be the consequence of the breaking of the agreement. You can find all of those in the letter.

I want the situation to end, so I requested a written response to my letter since speaking to them and receiving verbal reassurance does not work. Also if they do in fact report me to the Credit Bureaus for this $18.75 bill (!) I will have something to submit to the Credit Bureau to rebut their claim.

Father's Day Fiasco

My father who is 87 is a man who has everything he wants, so when holidays like Father's Day come around, it's hard to find something that he will enjoy. He does love chocolate, though, so this year I decided to give him Chocolate of the Month through a company called C&H Clubs.

A couple of holiday seasons ago, I gave a monthly beer subscription to my son-in-law and he really enjoyed it, so I thought chocolate might bring the same enjoyment to my dad.

I went on the website and purchased the subscription, indicating that I wanted a notification email sent to Daddy on the day before Father's Day.

Here's what happened:

• No email arrived, so when Father's Day came, luckily I called to wish him a happy day, and found out in the phone call that he had had no notification. Instead the email arrived on Monday, June 16, the day after Father's Day.
• The email read, and I quote: "Happy Father Dr. Clifford" While I do hope he is a happy father, it should have read, "Happy Father's Day." And if they had used his name, it should have read "Dr. Tillman."
• OK, so that's not too big a deal, but then I received notification via email that the chocolate had been shipped. Mother and Daddy did not receive it on the day Fed Ex said they had delivered it.
  
• My parents live on acreage that is sort of below a neighborhood. Their street address is on the street, so while they have a next door neighbor, his house is next to their driveway, but their house is about 100 yards away from the street. The day after the Fed Ex delivery, their neighbor walked down to bring them the chocolate which was for my father. The neighbor, thinking the package was for him (?), opened the chocolate and ate a few pieces.

So for Father's Day, my father received his gift late, opened, and partially eaten. He was not notified about his gift until the day after Father's Day, and the note was written in such a way that I suspected the company of outsourcing their gift notification to a non-English speaking company.

I sat with this for a while, but decided to call The Gourmet Chocolate of the Month Club to complain. The man I spoke to felt really bad about all of this. He put me on hold to see what he could find out. While he was away from the phone, I decided that I would be happy if he would extend Daddy's subscription for a month so that he could have his full subscription of unopened chocolates delivered to him.

I was all ready to be assertive and ask for a month's subscription when the customer service rep, Sheldon, returned to the phone. He acknowledged that they didn't keep their outgoing emails long enough to be able to look at the faulty email and sending date, but he apologized for that and said that he would like to offer to extend Daddy's subscription for one month beyond the end date to make up for the faulty partially eaten June delivery!

Mission accomplished!

The Apology that Never Quite Happens

The negative assertion is a statement that requires real courage on the part of the speaker. A negative assertion is taking responsibility for something you did wrong.

The classic example is the story of George Washington and the cherry tree. George was making a negative assertion when he told his father: "I cannot tell a lie, Father, I chopped down the cherry tree."

In a sincere apology, the apologizer takes responsibility for what he/she has done wrong and acknowledges his/her mistake. An assertive apology includes the implication or even a direct statement that behavior change will be the result of recognition of the mistake by the apologizer.

There are, however, a number of ways in which one may look as if he/she is apologizing and one is not actually taking the responsibility. Here are three:

"I didn't mean to hurt your feelings."

• The pull here is for the other person to absolve you right on the spot by saying, "That's OK." So what happens is that the person to whom the apology should be directed is actually taking care of the perpetrator!
• In fact it is not OK for someone to hurt your feelings. The assertive response might be (said in a calm, measured tone), "Well, you did hurt my feelings."

"I'm sorry you feel that way."

• This is an observation and not an apology. In essence you are saying, "I'm sad to see you feeling that way." There is no responsibility taking when this is said.
• Note that including the word "sorry" in a sentence does not qualify the sentence as an apology.
  

"I'm sorry I did XXX, but if you hadn't done YYY, I never would have done it."

• While the speaker here is taking responsibility, he/she is actually doing a verbal hit and run: "I did do it but actually it is your fault, not mine ."
• This speaker doesn't stay in the apology mode long enough to make it stick, but moves quickly to blaming the victim.

Because I am training for the Breast Cancer Three Day, I am walking longer distances each week. I gave myself an IPod - I've never had one before - so that I could listen to downloaded items to make the walks more interesting.

I've been downloading podcasts from NPR to listen to. I love "This American Life" with Ira Glass. Yesterday I listened to his podcast entitled "Mistakes Were Made," all about not-quite apologies.

The first hour of the piece is a grim story about failed cryogenics, but the second act (occurring at about 51 minutes) is a wonderful piece on an often quoted poem of William Carlos Williams entitled, "This is just to say."

I have eaten the plums

that were in the icebox

and which

you were probably

saving

for breakfast

Forgive me

they were delicious

so sweet

and so cold

In this poem, the writer clearly knows that his wife was saving the plums and he commands her forgiveness, "Forgive me," rather than assertively apologizing.

Ira Glass's point was the phrase "Mistakes Were Made" does not include anyone taking responsibility. "Mistakes were made," puts the responsibility out in space somewhere and doesn't address the culpability of "by whom?" The statement: "Mistakes were made," is in the passive voice.which by English definition does not include the action of apologizing.

My extremely worn out copy of Plain English Handbook from my high school years says, "Passive voice denotes that the subject receives the action." In a sense, it's circular. The "were made" circles back to the "Mistakes" without any reaching out to claim responsibility. An active (and therefore responsibility taking) way to say the same thing via negative assertion is, "I made a mistake."

Wow, see how the change from passive voice to active makes a real apology happen!

As a result of this episode of This American Life, a number of take-offs appeared on the Internet. Here's one. (Be sure to read the numerous responses which include other quite clever spoofs)

Another Internet letter to clear up confusion

In October, November and December, I received those "please renew now" notices that magazines send out regularly from one of my favorite magazines, Gourmet.

Meanwhile I noticed that on Amazon there were opportunities to subscribe to a number of different magazines at $10 for the year. I took them up on their offer and subscribed to Gourmet. My address is the same and I assumed that they would tack my new Amazon subscription on to the end of my current subscription as most magazines do.

Instead I began in January to receive two copies of the magazine each month. I thought it would stop after January, but the process of receiving two magazines has continued until now. So I decided to write an assertive letter.

Dear Customer Service,

I am very frustrated. I am getting two copies of Gourmet every
month since January. If there's an overlap of subscription renewal,
I thought you simply extended the subscription rather than send
duplicate magazines - it's a waste of paper and my money.

I received numerous notices to renew my Gourmet in the fall. At the
same time I found a bargain rate on Amazon.com. Thinking my
subscription was up in December, I renewed by using the Amazon
site. Now I get two copies of the magazine each month.

I scanned the two labels below. Please extend my subscription
rather than send me duplicates. I would like the extension to include
the four months of duplication which I did not ask for and which I
have paid for thinking I would get one magazine each month.

I love Gourmet and look forward to receiving it for the length of time
I have paid for through the renewal on Amazon.

Notice how the assertive statements are made as "I" statements. I don't question their intelligence or organization, but I do state what I'd like them to do to fix the problem. I ended positively because I do love Gourmet and want to continue subscribing.

I'll post when I find out how they handle this letter.

The Importance of White Space and Email

I've mentioned a number of times about assertive emails in these posts. In today's Internet world, often the rules of grammar take a back seat to the need for adequate attention. In email, employing white space effectively is part of writing an assertive email.

For example, if I am writing an email regarding a product purchased on the Internet, my request can be lost in the use of good grammar.

Re: Order # 450845408

Dear Sir:

The lamp I purchased from your website on April 20 arrived yesterday. When I plugged the lamp in and turned the switch "On", the bulb would not light. I have tried the lamp in several plugs with the same result. I have also changed the bulb in case the bulb I chose was defective. However, the lamp continues not to light. I would like you to replace the lamp with the same model as soon as possible.

Sincerely,

Good grammar would argue that all of the sentences in that email should be in the same paragraph. After all, each sentence is about the subject of the paragraph, the defective lamp.

However, in an email, effectiveness is increased with the use of white space to emphasize your points. People glance at email quickly and it helps if the parts you want to focus on are in stand-out positions on the computer screen.

So here's how it would look in an effective assertive form:

Re: Order # 450845408

Dear Sir:

The lamp I purchased from your website on April 20 arrived yesterday. When I plugged the lamp in and turned the switch "On", the bulb would not light.

I have tried the lamp in several plugs with the same result. I have also changed the bulb in case the bulb I chose was defective. However, the lamp continues not to light.

I would like you to replace the lamp with the same model as soon as possible.

Sincerely,

Now the important sentences jump off of the computer screen. Points that are made are separated from each other by the use of white space:

• The lamp arrived and it doesn't work
• I've tried all reasonable approaches to determine that the lamp is defective
  
• I want you to replace it.

Good luck with speaking up for yourself in email!

Assertive Email about an Internet Purchase

I ordered these wooden boxes from a site on the Internet. In order to build the boxes the dovetails have to fit together. As you can see the sides are cut exactly the same so there is no way for the dovetails to join.

I took these pictures of the problem and sent a letter to the company who sold me the boxes.

Dear XXXX Company,

I received my order this week and was very pleased to get it. I put together four of the medium boxes tonight.

When I got to the fifth box, the dove tails on the short sides and the long sides were cut exactly the same. In other words, they did not complement each other, so the pieces would not fit together. I'm attaching pictures so you can see the problem.

Please replace the box which was cut in error.

Thank you,

Linda T


The best assertive letters are very simple. This email is an example. I state the problem succinctly: "...the dove tails on the short sides and the long sides were cut exactly the same." I attached pictures to clarify any confusion about the facts to which I refer. Finally in a separate stand-alone sentence, I made a simple statement of what I want: "Please replace the box which was cut in error."

If in writing an assertive letter, you fill it full of non-essential detail, the reader is less likely to know what you want and less likely to address your need.

I'll post when I get either a replacement or a reply.

I'm not Lynn/Len/Lyn Tillman

For the past three months, I have come home to messages on my machine for "Lyn/Len/Lynn?? Tillman" asking that I call an 800 number. The agency calling hasn't been one I recognize and I don't pick up the phone at home when I don't know the person calling on Caller ID.

However, after two months of messages for this "Lyn Tillman" person, I picked up the phone about a month ago. In fact it was a collection agency. I said, "This is Dr. Linda Tillman. I am not Lynn Tillman and I don't owe you any money. Please quit calling me." The person on the other end apologized and said she would take my name off of the list.

About a month went by with no calls but about two weeks ago, the calls started up again. This Lyn/Len/Lynn Tillman must be in great debt to someone. Last night I answered the phone. The man on the other end asked for "Len Tillman."

I said, "I wish you would quit calling me. I am not the person you are looking for - my name is LINDA." He said, "Well, we have a birthday on this person of October 11, 1957." (I'm not sure of the exact date he said.)

I replied, "My birthday is __________ and I was not born in 1957."

"OK," he said, "I'm sorry and we will remove your name from this computer list."

I think it may have helped that I without pause said, "My birthday is __________." But I'm not sure I trust that I will not start getting calls again in about a month. I'm hoping my assertive statements helped and that the calls will stop.