Mad About You

This morning I took a phone call from one of our “regular” customers.

I work in insurance and most people don’t contact their insurance agent on any kind of a regular basis.

Our “regulars” are a group of probably 100 or so people who we hear from at least once a week, unlike most people who rarely, if ever, contact their insurance agent.

We hear from them even more now that Allstate put out all these “Are You Covered For That?” commercials. This bunch calls to find out if they are covered and to wonder why their neighbor pays less for insurance than they do. They can’t remember if they’ve paid and what check number they’ve used or they’ve written the wrong policy number on the check and the payment’s been applied to the wrong policy. It’s always something.

Anyway, my “regular” for today is a psychologist. Unfortunately, she was late paying her bill because her dog has pee issues and she may have used it to clean something up. She thinks I am “sweet” (shows what knows, right?) and just blurts out that the last three times she has talked to me, she can sense tension in my voice.

I have been very tense lately, but I denied it and she said she was going to help me, anyway. I said that was not necessary and tried to steer the conversation back to insurance. No go. She said she wants me to stay up late tonight and write letters to everyone who angers me.

I told her I’m not angry, but she said to write the letters anyway. Oh, and I should put little post-its all over that say “Jessica, what angers you?” to trigger ideas.

I don’t have to write a letter. I already know what make me downright mad. People who bug me even when I’m nicely, politely and very sweetly suggesting that they leave me alone.

Back to insurance? No, not yet. She then gave me the phone number of some other psychologist who she said retired “years ago”. He’s 89. She told me that he would be glad to help me, too, but to keep in mind that if I talk to him and it seems like he doesn’t remember anything, just to keep talking because it’s all in there somewhere and will come back to him.

What? I repeated again that I don’t need help, (especially from someone who can’t even remember what we’re talking about) and asked again if she wanted to pay her bill, but she wouldn’t take no for an answer.

“People don’t think about these things enough” she insisted. Personally, I think people think too much about these types of things sometimes. My daughter’s one therapist told her that for a while, no matter what anyone asked of her, she was to reply “I can’t, I’m focusing on myself right now”.

Huh? So I asked the therapist about “Sam, do your chores....Sam, do your homework...Sam, please pass me a fork”...and was told that Sam was to respond in the above manner to any request made of her.

I don’t know what lala-land that one lives in, but as an earthling, I have a little problem with that. As Gwen Stefani would say “That shit is bananas! B-A-N-A-N-A-S!

My psychologist customer said she will call me tomorrow to discuss what I’ve learned about myself tonight after writing angry letters to no one. I guess I’ll have to call in sick or something because there’s some rule in business that says you have to be nice to your customers. Whoever thought up THAT rule didn’t think it entirely through. That’s for sure.

What do you think? Can you over think your problems to the point that the thinking about it becomes the actual problem?

I think so. And speaking of thinking, head on over to Malcolm’s and play this weeks Tuesday Trivia. That’ll get you thinking!