Mrs. Thompson was in charge of the information desk and switchboard in a medium-sized New England factory. A well-bred Englishwoman in her late thirties, the boss liked her for her pleasant voice over the phone, for her unfailingly courteous treatment of visitors.
But if the boss liked her, almost no one else did. Salesmen particularly complained of her crankiness and of the unsatisfactory service they got. Young Bacon was an exception, though. He always got what he wanted.
One day the office manager asked him how on earth he did it.
Bacon thought he was being taken for a ride, but finally answered: "Why, that's a cinch. I take Mrs. Thompson's job seriously."
Pressed for details, he supplied them.
"I never try to kid her. I never bawl her out. When I want a number I treat her as though the switchboard were her own particular business and I a customer. Just as if she had something to sell, and I something to buy. When I ask for some special service, she gives it to me. Or she tells me why she can't."
Afterwards the office manager took the trouble to look into the situation. The switchboard job was a life saver to that woman of 38. She needed the money in the first place. And besides the job gave her a sense of responsibility. She was proud of her job, proud to know that the men in the business depended upon her for certain important services. She couldn't understand, then, when a salesman picked up his telephone and barked a command at her as though she were a piece of office furniture, or patronized her as if she were a child, or kidded her as if she were a 20-year-old flapper. It made her cranky to be treated like that. And when someone like Bacon came along with his method of treating her work as a responsible piece of business, it put her on her mettle.
The solution was obvious. The office manager talked Mrs. Thompson and Mrs. Thompson's job over with the salesmen. It wasn't long before they changed their tactics, with resultant improvement in the quality of the telephone service they got.
Sounds like a case of knowing the foibles of the person involved, doesn't it?