You're Welcome...for the life lesson you're about to receive.

The next time you have a bad experience with a company, really it doesn't matter what kind of company, it could be a clothing store, a phone company or, say...a 55 acre botanical garden which boasts the largest man made waterfall in the western hemisphere surrounded by 250,000 tulip bulbs which are ready to burst the minute the weather starts to cooperate, ask yourself this:

"Am I more inclined to be nice to someone who is mean to me, or nice to me?"

And I promise you, you will get farther with that person. Yeah, yeah, yeah the customer is always right...in a perfect world. But ya know what? The person who's "job" it is to tell you you're always right, doesn't want to. They want to tell you what an idiot you are for thinking that even though its been snowy and cold, 250,000 tulips will be blooming. They want to tell you that you're absolutely right, you can just go up and take portraits in the canyon and save yourself $100 fee, so why don't you? They want to tell you to shut the crap up before you have a pregnant woman come at you with a gun. They want to tell you that you should be careful, because you have a membership, and this manager can access your home telephone number, your home address and the names of all of your children.

So, the next time you want to "speak to the manager" remember this...the manager is a person who's life does not revolve around their place of employment. Who really, is just counting down the days until she gives birth and leaves this all behind her. Who really, promises, she'll do whatever she can to help you if you're nice. And if you're not, she'll do whatever she can to keep your money and make you leave upset. That's right, she gets a little bit of satisfaction out of it.