Resolutions

[Note: I'm on the road this week, so posts will be a little less frequent than usual. Last Wednesday night I attended a belated birthday dinner for my great niece (making me her great uncle, as if the greatness of my unclehood was ever in doubt). She's one year old, and is rumored to be able to say "mama," "dada," and "bye-bye," but so far the one phrase I've definitely heard her say is "Sponge Bob." Another literary genius in the family.

But to this evening's topic:]

For most of my life I didn't make New Year's resolutions. Then, about 5 years ago, as experiment, I made two resolutions: I would eat more chopped raw garlic, and I would try to slow down the rate that my personal information was getting into corporate data bases.

The first resolution was a qualified success: I mostly have raw garlic when I dine out. When they bring you the basket of fresh bread with the little dish of olive oil, just ask for the garlic too. Usually works.

The second resolution, not so much. I did get better at telling clerks they didn't need all that information just to sell me a dollar's worth of something. (Radio Shack used to be really annoying about that.) On the other hand, that was about the same time I began doing more debit card and online purchasing, so at best I probably broke even.

The best resolution I ever committed to was about 3 years ago, when I decided that, if I wanted to come down on a server or clerk for giving me bad service, I couldn't do so unless I'd already made a point of telling some server or clerk when they gave me good service.

And it couldn't be a generalized, evens-out-over-time offset; it had to be a very specific quid pro quo: If I got bad attitude from a Salesperson A on Monday and unloaded them, and then got attitude from Salesperson B on Wednesday, I couldn't go off on B unless I had specifically thanked someone for good service in the interval between. At least once, that's involved going back to a shop I'd just left to find the clerk (let's call her C) and thank her for her help, then returning to the other shop to let fly at B for giving me the runaround.

It's usually not that complicated, though; if can I just remember to be mention it when I get treated well, I can store up the psychic credit and know it won't be that long until I get the satisfaction of telling someone off with a clear conscience. And often you can see that you've caught the person at the end of a rotten working day (or lifetime)--one spent either butting heads with customers or lucking out and just being ignored by them, so that the poor harried employee is clearly wondering why they even bother to be helpful anymore. That's when the look on the good clerk's face--when you tell tell them specifically what they did that you appreciate--can be priceless. So one way or another it's been a resolution that's provided a lot of harmless fun over the years.

I haven't worked out my list of resolutions for next year. I've got some things I'm thinking about, but I haven't decided which one's I'll commit to.

And you? What resolutions, if any, are you going to make? If you're shopping around for some possibilities, here's a good list to start from. (I have a copy fastened to my refrigerator door.)

Happy holidays (bite me, Bill O'Reilly).