I belong to a couple of online “communities” by virtue of the things I post about: some weird diet groups (not on the bingo card this time last year, but here we are), some tech support/techie groups, and UNC athletics fandoms.
For those not in the latter group, UNC played Duke (I have a hard time spelling that the mature way, for the record) in men’s basketball this past weekend, a game where Duke was heavily favored. They won the game, but not as convincingly as their victory a few weeks earlier in Durham. Carolina fans could still hold their heads high, having led by as many as 7 points midway through the second half.
In Durham we (yes, I consider the tuition and fees I paid to the institution significant enough to claim first-person rights to the team) got embarrassed. In Chapel Hill we just got outplayed by a team that is more physically gifted than us.
As Duke made their (what would be ultimately decisive) run in the middle of the second half, the camera panned to the parents of star player Cooper Flagg. Cooper had just slammed home a nasty (and relatively uncontested) dunk, having driven past his defender on a fast break broken play. It was a dunk worth celebrating, if you were wearing Royal blue.
As the camera hit Kelly Flagg, it captured her and her husband aggressively celebrating by doing the “head-tap” motion, and turning to taunt the surrounding fanbase of mostly Tar Heels. I’m not good at lip-reading, but her face said enough to know she wasn’t commending the hustle of her son, she was taunting the crowd with some language she’d probably not use at church.
As tends to happen when you get televised internationally, folks immediately began to blast Kelly for a couple of reasons:
- The head tap celebration is for when you dunk on somebody’s head. To do it when there’s nobody there is like doing a Grand Slam celebration for a 2-run homer, or like celebrating your half-birthday with cake.
- She’s an adult turning to scream profanity at the people sitting around her.
Sure, there’s lots of pearl-clutching and self-righteousness involved, and I’m honestly not here to contribute to that, nor am I here to try and defend Flagg.
I’d be lying if I tried to pretend that watching Ms. Flagg display such a distinct lack of (a) taunting knowledge and (b) class was anything other than gratifying, but I’m here to sell books.
That’s right: I’m here to use this trending topic (Ms. Flagg went on to dig herself into a hole by calling all UNC fans “classless A-holes” in a much-screenshotted social media post) to tell you to order my book.
Is my book going to keep you from making the same blunder that Kelly Flagg committed? Maybe.
One of the principles I harp on in the book: in technical support you can either escalate or deescalate things. Being defensive will always and only escalate things.
One of the things my team hears me say repeatedly: let’s control what we can control in the situation, and remain focused on solving the user’s problem. To take even a second to justify your own actions opens up a dialog that leads directly away from resolution.
Good when you’re trying to generate ad revenue for a social media site, but bad when you’re trying to resolve technical issues for a frustrated customer.
Folks who preorder before March 20th get bonuses. Read more about those here.