How to get what you want from strangers: the phantom child

I know a few of my readers were quite shocked and appalled at the lengths I went to when I attacked one of my readers Penny - it was rude, it was personal and let's just say the language was very colourful. I am not apologizing for the language I have used, but I am going to talk about the situation because many of us will find ourselves in a similar position in life and it is undoubtedly useful to know how to get what you want from strangers. I shall summarize the story for those of you who are not aware of it - Penny felt irritated at the way I write my blog and told me to change my ways. I reacted very negatively at the very critical tone she used and the way she demanded that I did as I was told. In short, I gave her a massive F-bomb tirade about who the fuck do you think you are, why the fuck should I listen to you, do you think I am interested in trying to please you etc. Time for a lesson on how to win friends and influence people.

How do you get a stranger to give you what you want?

But let me analyze where Penny went wrong. She assumed that her complaint was a valid one - she felt irritated by some aspects of my writing which clearly, she didn't like. She thought that if she was up front with what she thought the problems were, I would listen and take heed. But here's one aspect of the situation that she overlooked - I don't know who this Penny woman is. I have had 8.5 million hits on my blog - you think I know the identities of every single reader? Clearly not, so even if she feels like she knows me after having read a lot of my articles, well I have no idea who she is - she is a complete stranger by that token. Let's compare that to my sister whom I'm very close to: now we can talk about anything under the sun and if she offers me advice, I'll comply because I trust my sister's judgement, she has won my trust and respect. I know that my sister knows me extremely well and I know how intelligent she is - so if she asks me to do something, I'll listen to her. So if you're dealing with someone very close to you, then you will probably be able to get them to do what you ask them to do easily. But what about strangers then? There are times in life when you have to ask people you don't know to do something for you: is it just a question of asking nicely?

No, it isn't. Let's face it, no matter how nicely Penny could have asked me, the reply would have been the same. Maybe I wouldn't have been quite as rude to her but I still would not have listened to her. But allow me to turn to a friend of mine Judy who is a young, university student working part time this summer in a restaurant as a waitress. I had the pleasure of dining at the restaurant where she works recently. This restaurant had two sittings per dinner - the early evening sitting starts from about 6:30 pm and the late evening one starts from about 8:30 - 9 pm. The restaurant strives to get at least two sittings per table in an evening in order to maximize revenue. That usually creates a critical bottleneck around 8:30 to 9:15 pm when you're trying to get the diners from the first sitting out so the table can be quickly cleaned and prepared for the next sitting. Leave it till 9:30 pm and it is too late - there will probably be no one looking to have dinner that late and the restaurant loses revenue. The waiters are taught never to ask diners to leave as they will usually upset the diners, making them feel unwelcome (and they won't tip). They may never return to the restaurant, they may get upset, leave a bad review online and kick up a fuss about being asked to leave. And yes, you will get the diners who just wanna hang around - they have finished their meal, they won't order anything else but they will sit and talk, occupying the table for ages. So how do you get someone like that to leave without upsetting them?

Customer service in a high end restaurant is hard work!

Judy said her manager Mark had a special tactic - I got intrigued by what she told me so I chatted to him. Mark explained it like this, "never ever make it about the customers who are occupying the table. That's the first rule. Secondly, you must never ever make it about you the waiter or the restaurant. It can never ever be personal. The customers must never be made to feel like they are causing a nuisance or inconvenience. Make it about the phantom child who has had a little accident. You walk up to the table and you apologize profusely. Hey guys, I'm so sorry to disturb you but we have had an unfortunate situation at a table nearby. I don't want to cause a fuss but a young disabled child has had a little accident of the toilet nature at that table. Please don't look, I think the mother is quite embarrassed by what happened. We're a family-friendly restaurant and sometimes things like that happen but the strict health and safety rules state that we must properly clean up the area at once as human waste constitutes a serious health hazard in a restaurant and there will be the smell of rather strong cleaning chemicals. So in a moment you'll either be smelling the child's little accident or our cleaner's bleach - probably both. I really hate to do this as you guys are such a lovely bunch of people, we really loved having you guys here tonight but I have a couple of discount vouchers here for the wine bar around the corner, would you like to go there to continue your evening please?"

In most cases, faced with the possibility of breathing in the stench of poo and strong bleach, the customers will usually leave the restaurant in record time with no fuss. And of course, there was no disabled child having an accident. But you create an excuse and you flatter the strangers, telling them how lovely they are and make it hard for them to say no when you make it sound like they are the nice guys in helping you out. Oh and Mark has a huge stack of 10% discount vouchers from the new wine bar behind the counter - they literally give out those vouchers on the street corners near the restaurant but hey it's the thought that counts when it comes to a gesture of goodwill! Judy said that she has witnessed Mark use variations of this story with various customers in the last few months and she is amazed how he can manipulate even the most difficult customers into complying. The best moment was when there was a party of quite drunk men who were clearly upsetting the other customers and Mark managed to convince them that one of the other customers - an old lady - has just collapsed from a suspected stroke and an ambulance will be arriving shortly - they needed to clear that part of the restaurant just in case they were going to have to treat the patient on the spot as it looked really serious. Mark flattered the guys, gave them some discount vouchers and the drunk guys left pretty quickly without saying a word. Of course there wasn't an old lady having a stroke - but Mark couldn't have marched over there and said, "you guys are disturbing everyone else, shame on you guys! Now please pay your bill and get out of my restaurant." Oh can you imagine how they would have reacted if Mark had done that?

There is a right and wrong way to deal with such a situation.

But wait - is there something missing from the equation, something missing from Mark's seemingly perfect approach? Yes, there is in fact. Mark didn't get to play the part of the angry primary school teacher reprimanding a group of very naughty boys for misbehaving in class - oh he was never going to get that 'satisfaction' from scolding them. Instead, he used flattery to get them to comply and cooperate. So the question really is about what Mark's priority are: as the restaurant manager, his priority was to get that rowdy group of out of restaurant. Even if he was irked by their behaviour, berating them, making them feel bad about disturbing the others in the restaurant was not his number one priority. The fact is, Mark could only have one or the other - he couldn't have both. The fact is, any kind of confrontational approach would not have led to the drunk guys complying and leaving the restaurant promptly and quietly. But for what it is worth, Mark always manages to get the difficult customers to comply, even if it means giving them high-fives, praising them and even flattering them for their bad behaviour. So by that token, it is by no means a perfect solution by that token, but as good as it gets when it comes to running a busy restaurant in central London!

Mark has demonstrated that you can manipulate people into giving you what you want by creating a 'phantom child' (or old lady having a stroke - but that's quite a mouthful, so let's stick with 'phantom child''). You see, the key thing in this situation is to avoid a confrontation that will lead to the other party reacting with, "oh yeah? Why should I give you what you want? Why should I listen to you? What if I don't give you what you want? Who the hell do you think you are bitch? What if I refuse to give you what you want? Are you gonna make me give you what you want? I'd like to see you try." That was kinda how I ended up with Penny, when I went out of my way to tell her to basically go fuck herself with a giant cactus - yeah. Basically, I was proving to her that I neither respected her nor had any desire to please her, so it was a huge error of judgement for her to march up to me and tell me what to do. So, what would someone like Mark do, if he wanted to get a blogger like me to change the way I write? Let's deal with Penny's accusation that I was very arrogant in the way I talked about my many achievements, so how would someone like Mark tell me to tone it down?

How do you influence someone over the internet?

So let's stick with Mark's formula from the restaurant. Firstly, you start with flattery. He would tell me how popular my blog is, how he enjoys not just my articles but my wonderful vlog pieces on my Youtube channel. Great start, that would put a smile on my face and instantly like this guy Mark already. I'm far more likely to want to listen to someone I already like. Then he would create the phantom child - he might say that "oh I know what a great writer you are, your stories are so inspirational, but there are some Singaporeans who are kicking up a big fuss about how social influencers can be so very arrogant and boastful. They mentioned a number of bloggers like that and you were named - I know you're not like the other shallow and vain social influencers in Singapore, so I wonder what gave these people that impression to put you in the same category as them?" And at this stage, because I have already been lured into a false sense of security that I am listening to someone who likes me, I would think, "oh my goodness, thank you very much for warning me, I must think about how I am coming across to people if that's the impression people are getting." And as for the discount voucher, Mark would then offer to share some of my recent articles on social media and get me more readers. That makes me think, wow, he's giving me something in return - this guy must be on my side, I should listen to him and do as he suggests. And before you know it, not only am I giving Mark exactly what he wants, I am thanking him for it. So do you want to scold me or get me to give you what you want? You choose.

There is also another episode which demonstrates how reverse psychology is so important when it comes to getting what you want from strangers. The key question you wanna ask yourself is this: are you only interested in venting your anger by hurling insults at this stranger, or do you actually want them to do what you want them to do? There is a big difference between the two and you can really only have one or the other. Now the classic example of the primary school teacher is hard to replicate in real life - teachers have the power over their students to scold, berate, even punish them if they do something wrong and teachers has both the power of making students comply and feel bad for misbehaving. It is a very powerful position to have, but such is the relationship between a teacher and young children. That kind of relationship adults have (be it amongst friends or say between Mark and his difficult customers) are very different indeed and you cannot assume the role of the primary school teacher with adults and expect to get adults to comply the same way. No, the dynamics of relationships amongst adults are very different - that is why Mark needs his "phantom child" tactics to manipulate his difficult customers. Being confrontational may be at best a way to vent your frustration, but it is never ever going to get the other party to comply - it will probably make the situation much worse.

This primary school teacher has power over her students.

Do you know what the biggest irony is? Penny claims to be studying psychology - yet she knows so little about dealing with people in real life that she managed to get the worst possible reaction out of me. It is baffling that someone who is studying psychology can mishandle such a situation so badly. Someone like Mark may not have gone to university, but having worked in a restaurant for so many years, he knows exactly how to deal with difficult people and get what he wants from the most difficult, demanding customers. So on my blog, I have bitched a lot about Singaporeans being book-smart but totally lacking any kind of soft skills that may help them survive in the real world. Someone like Mark may not have much in terms of formal qualifications, yet he is extremely street smart when it comes to his people skills. My young friend Judy may not have had the most high profile summer job (some of her friends have managed to get their hands on more interesting internships) but I daresay she has learnt a lot from her manager Mark and she is going to complete her degree anyway, so she is indeed getting the best of both worlds. Good for her.

Perhaps people like Penny are a sign of how badly wrong things are going in Singapore - that even your psychology students are great at memorizing a psychology textbook and writing long essays, but utterly hopeless and stupid when it comes to dealing with a real human being like me. Oh dear. What do you propose we do about the situation then in Singapore? How do you fix this problem? How can we get people like Penny to become more like Mark? Or is it a cultural thing - Mark is white and English, such people-skills comes with the culture and Singaporeans are simply raised in a culture and environment devoid of this kind of people skills, so it is like expecting a Singaporean to know how to ski without having ever experienced snow? Do leave me a comment below please. Many thanks for reading.