The Rule Of Wheaton

I've had a number of conversations over the past month with friends in regard to my email to Virgin about lack of service, with a general concensus that I was far more pleasant and patient than they would have been under the same circumstances. My approach for this was determined by a comment I heard years ago, that was initially attributed to Wil Wheaton, and is a simple message: don't be a dick.

After hunting to find out where the phrase came from, I discovered the Wikipedia entry for Wheaton's Law which appears to show the origins of how his association to this approach came around. You learn something new every day it seems. The article itself is a good read covers much of the ground I intended to cover initially, but I wanted to expand on a few points and my take on it.

If you start out being nice and polite, it means you have options - whether that be simply becoming more forceful in conversation, shouting or any of the other methods of brute force some feel necessary to make their point, and all the way up to reverting to full on dick. But remember this - you can always be more of a dick, you can never be less of a dick.* So start the bottom end in a polite, yet firm fashion and see where that takes you.

People seem to remember their first interaction with you, as it sets the tone for the future. If their memory is tained by the recollection you were an unpleasant individual, then it will take serious work on your part to get them over that initial impression. From a lazy man's perspective, this seems a better approach as it requires less work to modify opinions of you as a person, and allows you to steer it in the direction you wish things to go. Less dickery too. That can't be a bad thing can it?

Thinking it through a little further, is someone more likely to want to help you if they're asked in:

• a friendly and respectful fashion, or
• WITH CAPS ON AND MUCH SCREAMING

I'm sure stamping your feet can gain you ground with customer services who are eager to please, as that's how a lot of businesses wish to operate now ... but if I can achieve a near identical result by being nice and keeping my blood pressure and sanity, then that seems a better outlook. More importantly it isn't transferring dickery to the other person involved in this transaction and that means they don't feel rubbish for the rest of the day after dealing with you too. So to summarise, by being nice about things we can:

• Get things done how we want
• Retain sanity, blood pressure and keep stress down
• Have a positive knock-on effect to others with our upbeat attitude
• Spend time rescuing kittens from trees

There we are then - reasons not to be a dick ... or at least, not from the outset.

* Perhaps I shouldn't repeatedly use "firm" "nice" and "dick" in paragraphs together. It may be my inner child reponsible for writing, but it still gives me a giggle even in my thirties.