I think this article is great, well-written and to the point.
The only thing I would add is be prepared to be second-guessed, questioned and doubted for a while until you are trusted again. He who is truly sorry will anticipate and accept this ramification of their actions gracefully, with kindness and love — in even the face of adversity. He who doesn’t, in my opinion, isn’t sorry.
I spoke to my dad this weekend about his crown to find out what happened. He went back to the dentist to get his crown cemented in late last week for the second time. I was curious to know how it all went.
My dad told me after the assistant seated him, and just after the doctor greeted him, he said to the doctor that he did some reading on the web, and saw on Wikipedia that gold crowns were on average 20% less than porcelain crowns. My dad asked why he did not get a reduction in price (when the doctor at the ninth hour had changed the order from porcelain to gold)?
Read moreThe dentist said did you come here today to chew the price down? Is that your goal?
My dad politely said no. I want you to do what you think is fair. I’ll leave that decision up to you on how you want to handle this.
My dad said the dentist immediately said he was going to have that information on Wikipedia removed at once, and that if my dad didn’t trust him to make the appropriate choices for him as a professional then he wasn’t interested to do business with my dad.
My dad immediately pipped up and said that it wasn’t that he didn’t trust him because he had. My dad reminded the dentist of a recent referral my dad had sent to him–a woman who was getting three crowns, and who was also in the middle of her procedure a few weeks behind my dad. My dad said “If I didn’t trust you, I would have never sent you a recommendation.”
The doctor retorted back in an angry voice, “I don’t pay for my recommendations.”
My dad saw things were going well. The dentist was mad, indignant and simply wanted my dad to go away. The dentist left the room and said he had an emergency, but that he would be back.
My dad guesses that the dentist went to check out Wikipedia. He then came back, cemented in my dad’s crown, and told him never to come back.
My dad asked him if he was sure he wanted to do this , and the dentist angrily said yes!
My dad then walked out to pay his bill not knowing what he’d find. He was shocked. There was an additional $200 bill waiting for him–on top of the full price they had agreed upon originally. It was a $200 charge to cement in the crown! Can you believe it? I used to work in a dental office and this is beyond outrageous.
During the last visit, my dad specifically asked if there were any additional charges if they switched to the gold crown from the full priced they had agreed upon, and the dentist said no. Worse, my dad endured extra drilling and pain because of this man’s oversight, or mistake, and now this dentist wanted to charge him more on top of that!
As my dad looked closer, it said “Fee waived”.
Clearly, this dentist thought my dad was an easy take, or at least he had thought that before my dad spoke up. I suspect when the dentist left the room, he went to check out Wikipedia, and then went and corrected his outrageous billing tactics. He should have pulled it, but instead came into the room when my dad was paying his bill, and said I am not charging you for cementing the crown. Instead, I will write off as a loss!
What nonsense. Did he think my dad would think he was honorable? He is an absolute crook!
He not only was dishonest with my dad the first time when his work was rejected by the lab –now he wanted to over-charge my dad on top of it!
This only makes me wonder how often he gets away with this. He is quite arrogant in the face of questionable practices.
When my dad looked at the remaining bill he was prepared to pay, the dentist had reduced the total due by 10%. I guess that was his way of conceding there were valid complaints.
He never provided my dad any explanations, and Wikipedia nearly five days later still shows the cost of a gold crown is on average 20% less than a porcelain crown. He never got that removed. I wonder why?
When money changes hands, I can’t say it enough–be careful. An honest professional should always be willing to explain things if they don’t make sense to you. That’s part of their job as a professional.
I watched TLC a few weeks back after I saw the preview for Paul McKenna’s show: I Can Make You Thin! I normally would have written the show off because it made such outlandish claims, but since The Learning Channel was featuring the show, I decided to remain open-minded about it, and watch it. After all this wasn’t QVC, this was the learning channel. I am so glad I did.
For me the show was a light-bulb moment. It made sense. The reason I had gained some 20 pounds in the past decade and a half was simple: I was eating unconsciously. I wasn’t paying attention to what I was eating. Instead of eating with my stomach, I was eating with my eyes. I was eating while stressed and worried about what I had to do next, instead of focusing on how I was feeling when I was eating. There is no doubt about it for me.
Read moreI had no understanding of what hungry and full meant anymore. I was on a repetitive cycle of starving myself, and then gorging to ease the hunger pains. I had lost control as sad as it is to write, and every year, I’d pack on a more pounds.
On Easter Sunday, I sat down for brunch and decided to apply McKenna’s 4 Golden Rules. I was nervous and excited, but I was in for more of a surprise than I realized!
It was like I had been eating in black and white for years, and now that I was eating slowly, savoring every bite, focusing solely on the experience, suddenly my food experience was colorful. It was vibrant and alive!! It was tastier than I ever remembered. Food was satisfying, fulfilling, way more enjoyable, and with that, I had control!
At Easter brunch with family members feasting on the delights all around me, I confidently ate about 40% of what I normally did, and I was happy. I was content. I didn’t have a secret urge to grab another piece of cheesecake and devour it!
That’s amazing.
Yet the rules were so logical, so simple, and so basic. How could I have messed this up?
It was depressing to think that I had ignored my own sense of eating “intuitively”. I was intuitive in every other area of my life except eating. With eating, I had lost myself. While I was sad about it, I decided there was nothing I could do about the water under the bridge, so I decided to refocus on my new found success. I believe I will now be a skinny person. I really do!
When I believe something, I tell people about it. Perfect strangers. I chat, I talk, and I share the joy (when I feel it is appropriate), and in doing so, I can tell you I got priceless looks from people afterwards.
You’d think I was selling the Brooklyn Bridge.
“You can eat whenever you are hungry,” I say. “You can eat whatever you want!! You just stop when you are full, and oh, eat consciously. It’s amaaaazing,” I’d say with incredible enthusiasm. “Check out Paul’s website. It tells you all you need to know!”
No one believe me.
No one.
They’d listen me out, never ask a question and they’d give me that polite, fake smile. I could feel they wanted to me to shut up and go away–the sooner the better.
As I turned my back to walk away, I could feel ridicule follow behind me.
I had never felt such resistance before, so clearly flopping back in my face. I usually get people to open up to me. Not this time. I hit a brick wall. Head on.
I think I could have sold leaded weights to secretaries easier than I can sell this to strangers. Day-after-day of sharing my enthusiasms, each encounter, I walked away knowing I made the person looking at me think I was delusional.
I then read blogs to see what people are saying, and sure enough, there is a handful of skeptics after watching the show, too. They can’t believe it is that easy, and they are going back to weight-watchers!!
Can you believe it? I can’t.
It’s like if it isn’t complicated, people won’t buy it. Thankfully, Paul managed to get through to people. As he said, what do you have to lose by trying it? Perhaps a few pounds?! Why not give it a try?
I believe Paul McKenna is on to something with his 4 Golden Rules. I think he is truly sharing with everyone who is disconnected from food something that can be life-changing.
It’s just no one believes me when I tell them 🙁
My father went to a new dentist that was recommended by two people to get a crown. My family and I have been on a quest to find a good and honest dentist for months and months now. We finally had our hopes up that this time, maybe, we got one!
On the first two visits to the dentist, my dad seem pleased. His tooth was prepared for the crown, and all was going well.
Then yesterday, my dad went to get the new crown cemented in. He was happy to have the procedure behind him. But within the hour after leaving, he called my mom and I who were visiting during his absence. He called to say the dentist has changed his mind, and had decided he wanted to put a gold crown in instead of a porcelain crown because gold would be more durable, if my dad agreed.
Read moreMy mom was immediately on alert that something was fishy, and asked if the price was going to go up. My dad assured her it wouldn’t. The dentist said the price would be the same.
One would assume that my dad would be getting a better deal then, would you? Gold is a premium product.
Well, after my mom hung up, her wheels were spinning. She looked at me, and said something is up! There is some dirty business going on here. He was supposed to get his crown put on today, and now they are changing his order. What’s up with that? This doesn’t make sense.
Did they forget to order his crown?
Are they going to raise the price on him, and not tell him? What is going on??
My mom was visibly annoyed. This dentist wasn’t being honest, and she knew it.
We sat there, and talked about it–wondering what my dad was going to tell us when he came home. We waited for my dad to return quickly since they were changing the order, but he didn’t. Instead, he returned two hours later, so we were really curious!
When my dad walked through the door, and talked, we could tell his mouth was numb by the slurring of his speech. The dentist re-drilled around his tooth again. Obviously, there were issues, but did his dentist tell him this? My mom and I asked.
“No, he just changed the plan,” said my dad. “The dentist told me my bite is hard [which the dentist knew weeks ago], and so he decided I should have a gold crown instead.”
My mom said, “This dentist isn’t being honest, and I don’t know why, but I don’t like him!! I don’t like what he is doing!”
Mom my was going to think it through until it all made sense. You could see her wheels spinning. My dad, however, just wants to trust people, so he was getting visibly annoyed at my mom. He didn’t want to hear the truth. My mom and I are not easy to live with. We often see problems where others see none.
I immediately got on the web, and searched for gold crowns versus porcelain. Guess what I found? Gold crowns, while they are more solid than porcelain, are on average 20% cheaper!!! But this dentist didn’t offer my dad any discounts in the price he was to pay. Hell no. Instead, he told my dad that he changed his mind due to my dad’s hard bite which made no sense after the crown was supposedly already ordered!!
No dentist would change the order after it was supposed to already be delivered because he would be out money to switch the order after the fact, and hence he would transfer that cost to my dad, and he wasn’t. So that was the big red flag.
What my mom and I suspect happened is that this dentist messed up the work he did the first time, and when he sent the impression to the lab for the crown to be made, the lab rejected it.
But instead of telling my dad honestly that they needed to make a few more corrections, he decided to lie to my dad and tell him a made up story. And he made my dad endure more drilling and more pain. The nerve of this guy!!
Had my mom and I been in that chair, tensions would have risen because we would have questioned his inconsistencies on the spot! His version of events, if true, that he simply changed his mind, wouldn’t have required more drilling. We would have stopped him on the spot, and said wait a minute! We probably would have found an egotistical man, and walked out.
A simple statement of “We need to make a few more corrections” wouldn’t likely have alerted anyone to a problem, and he could have saved his reputation. Instead, he got cheap and wanted my dad to foot the bill for his mistake and in the end shot himself in the foot! Not very bright, if you ask me. We certainly aren’t going back to this guy. He just lost an entire family of business!!
Rewind 18 Hours
My husband went to get a haircut. He came home, and after dinner when he turned around, I noticed the shavers had buzzed off a big section of hair in the center of his hairline! You couldn’t miss it.
I said, “Turn around. What happened here?” My husband looked left, and looked right and said “What?? What’s wrong?” very aware that he couldn’t see the offending problem.
My husband ran and got a mirror, and stood before another one, twisting and turning until he saw what I saw.
Clearly, the guy cutting his hair got distracted, or slipped, and took of a lot more hair in the middle of his hairline then on the sides. My husband’s hairline looked like this __^^^__. You couldn’t miss it. While the middle wasn’t gone, it was thinned out more than 50%, and a big visible eye sore.
My poor husband was mortified, but quickly shucked it off as there was nothing he could do. My mom joked on the phone he should tell everyone it is the new French Doo as she laughed. My husband didn’t find it funny at all, and went back to the shop.
The owner is the one who cut his hair, and the owner’s wife was at the desk when he came in. She offered to fix the problem upon review, but my husband knew the fix would be to shave his hair another inch up his neckline. He declined telling her that would look awful. Then she said she’d talk to her husband about a refund. She went to the back, behind closed doors, returned, and said he was on the phone, but they would give my husband a refund. The guy who cut his hair never came out, and acknowledge it, and my husband has been a loyal, returning customer.
I’m sorry, but after you do this to a customer, I can’t imagine too many phone calls that should take a priority. Was this man just giving my husband an excuse so he didn’t have to face him?
If you make a mistake, fess up for Pete’s sake. We are all human, and we all make mistakes, and that’s okay!! Had he apologized to my husband when he did it, my husband might not have been happy, but he would have understood. Or better, he could have come out when my husband was back at the salon complaining, and acknowledged it, and apologized, but he didn’t. That’s just poor business ethics. I have no idea now where this guy will draw the line.
All this beautician had to do was come out, look at the problem and say, “Oh my. That’s awful. I’m terribly sorry.” He didn’t have to go into anymore detail. But instead of doing that, he ignored it, and frankly lost another family of customers!
Both of these professional men in the twenty four hours leave a bitter taste in my mouth, and feelings of distrust. These men were both willing to deny the truth, and skirt around the issue rather than face it which tarnishes their character, if you ask me. While they only made a mistake, which is completely excusable and forgivable, their unwillingness to face the music, and try to properly rectify the situation only complicates matters, and makes their situation even worse.
No one expects an elaborate defense for a simple mistake. Mistakes happen. We all do them. A simply apology goes a long way.
Is it really worth to deny a mistake? I personally don’t think so. I’d much prefer to offer a genuine, heart-felt and sincere apology, and if you can’t accept it, that is no longer my problem anymore, is it? I did the absolute best I could, and I can live with it.
MSN published an article today which tells the story of how one hard working young woman sabotaged her own career by lying on her resume. Her lies didn’t get caught right away, instead they were discovered by accident right before she was about to be offered a nice promotion. Ouch!
