Fair Play
Posted by Jason on January 7th, 2008 — in Business Solutions
It’s an unfortunate fact of life that occasionally, a client will be very, very upset with you. Motivational psychologists tell us that an angry customer, handled correctly, can turn into a valuable friend and ally. Here’s what you can do, in five easy steps:
1. Tell them you are sorry. Promise that it won’t happen again.
2. Ask them what it would take to calm them down. Don’t make any suggestions or set any limits. In rare cases they will want a simple apology (see step one).
3. If you can give them what they want, do so. If you can’t (and let’s face it, you probably can’t – there’s an excellent chance that they are being unreasonable), tell them they will have to speak to your manager.
4. Let them speak to your partner. Tell the client that he or she is your manager. While this is technically a lie, it’s a helpful lie for both you and the client.
5. Repeat steps one through three. If you and your “manager” can’t resolve the issue, it’s best to leave the client and let them cool off for a few weeks. Under no circumstances should you direct the client to contact your actual manager, or any senior BSI employee.
Posted by Jason on January 7th, 2008 — in Business Solutions
You were only trying to replace a fuser element, but you accidentally clipped the heat exchange fan and now it’s bent and useless. What do you do?
The correct course of action is to acknowledge the damage you’ve caused (see “How to Deal with an Angry Client”, page XX) and swiftly remedy the problem. Note the repair as “technician origin” on BSI-214 and add your initials – the cost of parts and labor will be promptly deducted from your paycheck.
Business Solutions, Incorporated cannot endorse deceptive practices. There are no circumstances in which BSI would encourage you to fold the damage you’ve accidentally caused into the trouble ticket problem description. Billing the client for damage you caused, using form BSI-214, line 7*, is unethical. Since no client possesses the technical acumen to determine precisely what has gone wrong with their copier, BSI must rely on your integrity not to take the easy, painless and undetectable way out.
*Line 10 if damage is to a motorized feed mechanism such as a finisher stack roller wheel.
Posted by Jason on January 3rd, 2008 — in Design
I’ve got rascals and villains on my mind. Here’s an idea of a light, comedic game.
“It is well known that there are four kinds of monks.
The first kind are the Cenobites: those who live in monasteries and serve under a rule and an Abbot.
The second kind are the Anchorites or Hermits: those who go out well armed from the ranks of the community to fight single-handed against the vices of the flesh and their own evil thoughts.
The third kind of monks, a detestable kind, are the Sarabaites: These, in their works they still keep faith with the world, so that their tonsure marks them as liars before God.
The fourth kind of monks are those called Gyrovagi. These spend their whole lives tramping from province to province, always on the move, with no stability, they indulge their own wills and succumb to the allurements of gluttony, and are in every way worse than the Sarabaites. Of the miserable conduct of all such it is better to be silent than to speak.”
–Benedict of Nursia
Of course it’s that fourth kind that interests me. Here’s the set-up: Everyone can play either an itinerant monk, a noble household, religious cloister, or peasant village. You need at least one monk and no more than one each of worldly group. The monks are the focus of play, so choosing a worldly group means choosing to provide the adversity for the rapscallions. Regardless of what you choose to play, you’ve got the same attributes to work with – probably a secret, something you desperately need, and something valuable you’ve got.
The monks want to suck everything they can out of their surroundings and leave before they are strung up. Everybody else wants what they want – maybe to expose them, maybe to run them off, not sure. But everyone starts hostile. And in the course of play the monks can “turn” locals to their side, convincing the foolish lord to give them the run of his manor, scaring the peasants into feeding them, stuff like that. But the monks are rogues in the Moliere mode, and there will always be one clear-thinking person – the reeve, the lord’s daughter, a firebrand Abbess – who sees through them, and bears the seeds of their exposure and ruin.
Just an idea…
1 Comment »
Posted by Jason on January 2nd, 2008 — in Check this out dude, Design
Just an idea … I realize now that this was inspired by the Story Games “this with that” challenge - it got me re-reading classic Traveller and thinking about super powers.
OUTLAW GODS
You are going to ground, and not a moment too soon. Authority is two jumps behind you and that will have to do. It ends here, above this interdicted world with the canopy of white clouds.
The ship – your ship – implodes above you and then drifts apart into 400 tons of garbage. There are bodies aboard, the right sex, the right number. Authority won’t look too hard. After all, what kind of fool would abandon the universe, forever, for a place like this?
They fight with swords down there. And you and your “friends” are taking the express route to join them, a tight cluster of ablative eggs punching, screaming, through the troposphere.
They’ve never seen a gun. They’ve never seen a Commensal or a tool pill. Hell, they’ve probably never seen clean water. You’ll fucking rule this place.
Read the rest of this entry »
8 Comments »
Posted by Jason on January 2nd, 2008 — in Check this out dude
I woke up in the middle of the night saying “tool pill” to myself.
TOOL PILL: A tool pill is a 30-gram single-use nanofactory with thousands of pre-defined simple objects available for construction. Tool pills can be set to provide everything from hedge trimmers to slabs of gold. Assume that any practical hand tool, household item, or metal part set can be fabricated, within boundaries defined by 4 kilograms and one cubic meter. If you know the desired tool’s sequence, the process requires 30 seconds and access to construction material – any matter will do. Activating a tool pill on an immobilized living being is an extraordinarily cruel method of execution, and results in a very creepy souvenir of your crime. Don’t lose your reference guide listing the many tools and their settings.
Reading too much Charles Stross. I’ve also been thinking about a game this would be perfect for - you play truly reprehensible criminals on the run from an interstellar authority, going to ground on some interdicted and dirty feudal backwater. It’s The Man Who Would Be King meets D&D by way of Traveller. You don’t have much high tech stuff, but what you do have makes you sorcerers, kings, Gods. You can pull ten pound slabs of gold out of thin air. You have fireball wands strapped to your hips. You know stuff, like how to stop cholera epidemics. But everybody hates a wizard, and eventually Authority (or other ne’er-do-wells) are going to come calling…
1 Comment »
