Letters to the Editor
Published Letters: 236 Editor's Choice: 17
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Most of the Issues that I Have Could be Solved
[Read the article: Ask the pilot]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]by having the airlines' management teams attend a few seminars on basic human needs.
1) Certainty we can avoid pain. Give back two of the 12 inches of legroom and one of many inches of butt room that have been taken away over the decades for the sake of shoving a few more people on a plane. I am an average weight, average height (5'6") woman, but when my knees get banged by the person in front of me reclining his seat, I KNOW that my 6'+ husband is miserable. He can't even sit sideways, because the seat width doesn't allow it--and the man is slender. Multiply the two of us by a plane full of people--many of whom are bigger in both directions--and you are guaranteed an unhappy load of passengers.
2) Significance. Teach your staff to treat people well, look them in the eye and smile, tell them the truth, and the flying experience will instantly improve.
3) Connection. This one's for your staff. Let your employees know, by the way that you treat THEM, that they are an essential component of the success of your company. Every employee, not just the CEO and the COO, need to be treated as important members of a team. They, in turn, will be more likely to treat the passengers better.
4) Love. Now, that's a little tricky. I think that we, as passengers, would be content with respect. Respect for our humanity, respect for our intelligence. We can figure out that YOU would do better across the board if you charged us $1.00 more per person and let us have an entire can of soda and packet of pretzels. Maybe go wild and charge us $3.00 more per person, and give us a cold sandwich on a flight that goes three hours, from 11 am to 2 pm. Even crazier, all of the above, but charge us $5.00 more, and don't start charging for the privilege of checking luggage that will be pawed through.
5) The ability to contribute beyond self. That one's easy. When people are treated as valuable customers, when staff are treated as valuable employees, they tend to begin to feel that way, to extend themselves. We have all paid the airline, at a minimum, a couple hundred dollars to get us from one place to another. For some, that's a big investment. When we believe that the airline appreciates our business, when we DON'T feel that we are being nickeled and dimed to death on top of that, we are more able to reach out. To feel compassion for the baby screaming through take off, rather than annoyance.
Bottom line, we are the CUSTOMERS. In my business, people make anywhere from nearly nothing to hundreds of thousands of dollars a month. Every cent that is made is contingent on one thing. The ability of the individual to meet the needs of the customers and the salespeople around them. The airlines could learn from that.
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First off, It's OK to Let a Spouse Know that They Have an Irritating Habit
[Read the article: My husband's sighs are driving me up the wall!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The thing is not to let the habit become so important that it outweighs all the things you love about them.
Second, you know he doesn't realize he's doing it, right? So, make him aware. Mirror his behavior at the same time as he does it, so he can associate the behavior with the causative agent. When my youngest was receiving speech therapy for his replacement of "l" and "r" with "w", the therapist told me to gently correct: It's Run, not Wun, honey.
Because to my son, what he was doing sounded like run--he wasn't aware of the difference. Your husband has learned to do something that he's unaware of, too.
I used to suck air in between my teeth, habitually. ABSOLUTELY had no idea that I did it so often. My husband started to make me aware, and coined a phrase to go with it: "Pfffffff" is only acceptable when you've just brushed your teeth."
At first, I had no idea what he was talking about. But as I became aware of the habit, and its potential for annoyance, I did it less and less, and finally, not at all.
You can do this. Ignore all the deep and meaningful reasons why he might have started it. You don't need to know WHY you are doing something to stop it. And there's a bonus. Even if, as some of the posters have claimed, he's sighing in response to the stress of a changed household, stopping the sighs might let him start finding more useful ways to deal with it.
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@ steto
[Read the article: My husband's sighs are driving me up the wall!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Your "tics" sound like a mild case of Tourette's to me. Just in case you haven't had that checked out. Not all people with Tourette's blurt out FUCK in the middle of a funeral--most of them, in fact, have tics--blinking, throat clearing, etc.
We all have SOMETHING that we do in response to stress. But if you have been cataloging your various but chronic gestures since childhood--and they were noticeable enough in childhood to lead to cruelty on the playground--I'd see a neurologist.