Back to the Jargon

If you have never taken a real hit on your self-worth, may I suggest you to try giving your car for service? 

The service person's diagnosis of your car will make you want to go home and tear into shreds that precious Engineering degree certificate that your parents have saved so proudly, along with a picture of you in the black graduation robes, and go join whatever course the chap in the blue uniform took, that gave him the ability to give such an astute diagnosis with such intellectual sounding words.

Like today, my service technician told me that, "There is an urgent requirement for me to get a zinc oxide coating on the Silencer because the existing anti rust treatment of the underbody was not sufficient for the silencer, since the special alloy based chemical composition of its exterior makes it immune to the anti rust coating and hence, is susceptible to damage from water and hence, the need for me to spend a holy Rs 4500 on getting this absolutely essential zinc coating on my silencer."

Ok. Here, take my credit card. 

You see what the Technician did there? He used his accurate understanding of human behavior to come to the conclusion that, bullshit baffles brains.

And this, I believe is the crux of all marketing. Correction, I think this is the crux of life. You can get away with anything, as long as you have dressed up your thoughts in complicated jargon. Because of a simple human truth.

Human beings don't like to look stupid. 

If something is put in credible sounding language, however incredible it actually is, people tend to believe it and not question it. They also start associating a certain expert-like quality to the person delivering it. If he is saying it this way, he must know what he is doing.

And that, in my humble opinion, is the Mantra to surviving in the big bag world. 

You will be surprised by how effective this can be. The other day, our company's admin department (Yes, this department still exists, and no, they do more than just organize the flag hoisting for Independence Day and I will prove this to you shortly) sent us this mail about their vision statement:

"Our vision is Enhancing Stakeholders experience through warmth & passion for excellence & to exceed stakeholders expectations with focus on quality, empathy and fairness"

After such a strong statement from them, who dare question the Admin department's efficiency or their usefulness? Not me. I have started  saluting the admin people when I run into them in corridors.

I am so inspired by this, that I have decided to use this Mantra in my daily life actively.

For instance, I thought the best way to get my maid to work is to impress upon her my background from the service industry. So I gave her a detailed presentation about EATCFD (Efficient Administration through Customer Focused Delivery). 

Unfortunately, this does not seem to have been in accordance with her values because she stopped coming for work. 

But, frankly, it beats me why she was not on board with this. I was only trying to systematically improve her revenue generation mechanism through improved Customer Centricity. 

Maybe it is not that foolproof a mantra. Sigh.

Cheers!

PS: Blog turned 8 years old this month. EIGHT. Woah. It's like a grown up child now.

Note: Bullshit Baffles Brains - Stanley Pollitt