"Hello, My Name is Langston, How Can I Help You?"

 "Sometimes you have to be kind to others, not because they're nice, but because you are." -Anonymous

Happy Friday, Everyone! I took a break from watching the newest Terminator movie, Dark Something-or-other now available on Amazon Prime to spend some time with you this fine evening. I am totally enjoying my glass of Maker’s Mark 46. I bought the bottle for myself as a birthday present on my 46th birthday (August 22nd in case you wanted to know and be prepared to buy me something special for # 47). The Terminator movie has not had a Governator citing yet (does anyone still even call him that, it was like so 2010-ish?) But, so far, not as impressed. I mean Linda Hamilton looks older, albeit still badass, and the effects are cool. But there is something to be said for the classics and watching the cheesy 1980’s effects. At least the bourbon is good. Maker’s never disappoints, it was my gateway bourbon and still one of my favorites. And this bottle of 46 is got great flavor – I could bore you with the details, but it was something like 10 French virgins stuck in a limestone cellar for 9 weeks, at least that was what I got out of the description. I was trying to tell Jodi about it, but she was long-since passed out, about midway through episode 6 of Yellowstone, Season 1 (Thanks Nicole and Jacob for our new post-kids-bedtime-show). But, Anthony, what the hell does all of this tangential nonsense have to do with Langston? Oh, yeah, I did have a point to this. You see, recently we switched internet providers and I had the unfortunate assignment of going toe-to-toe with one customer service representative after another to cancel our old service. I don’t want to name drop here but it had to do with the range of wavelengths of electromagnetic radiation of which our eyes are sensitive if you catch my drift. The gist is I canceled my service and they screwed up somehow and still charged me for another two months. Needless to say, I pulled the “I want to speak to your supervisor” card and we went from there. That brings me to Langston, customer service guy for the company we switched to. Again, not using names to protect the innocent, but let’s just say if we were talking about states it would be Alabama,Tennessee, & Texas. Langston was incredibly patient as I ranted, and professional in an era where phone etiquette seems lost. He made me feel like there are still good people out there who have to do a crappy job dealing with whiners, complainers, and a-holes and still handle it with a smile. Langston reaffirmed my faith in the human race and the fact that not all people who are supposed to service a customer have no concept of what that really means. But, to my credit, I was extremely nice to Langston from the get, only because I knew he had no idea what I was going to say, and it wasn’t his fault that the other guys sucked. It works both ways, showing a little kindness to someone on the other end of the phone does not just go for the guy who asks, “how can I help you?” We can be that nice, patient person who genuinely tries to be polite – (Except when it’s “Bob” from Chicago calling about my credit card balances or that irritating chick who wants to offer me a vacation – they can go to Hell!) There is a bit of a theme here with my last couple of blogs – mainly it’s can we try and be nice to one another more often? I know Langston gets it, why can’t we all?