NY Times Complaining Is Hard to Avoid, but Try to Do It With a Purpose By ALINA TUGEND Published: May 3, 2013
I RECENTLY had a mundane exchange with an acquaintance that took an odd twist. Me: “How’re you doing?” Her: “Can’t complain. And you?” Me: “Can’t complain either. But I still do.” Typically, we would chuckle knowingly and move on. But instead, she pointed to a purple rubber bracelet on her arm, like the once-ubiquitous yellow Livestrong ones, and asked if I knew about _AComplaintFreeWorld.org_ (http://acomplaintfreeworld.org/) — the words etched on the bracelet. The idea, she said, is that every time you complain, you switch the bracelet from one wrist to another. The goal is to go 21 days without complaining. She recommended I visit Complaint Free World’s Web site, and then offered me her bracelet. I took it, both intrigued and repelled by the idea. Like many people, I have a love-hate relationship with complaining. There is little that is more satisfying than chewing over a meaty complaint about an idiotic service person or the really annoying thing that friend does or how unbelievably rude a teenager can be. On the other hand, I really dislike people who constantly whine about the same thing. Or those who come to me seemingly wanting advice but then ignore my suggestions and continue grumbling about the same grievance. So do I want a complaint-free world? Or just one free of the kind of complaints I don’t like? It depends. Not many people believe we will ever have a world devoid of complaints. Nor should we. “Psychologically, it’s really unhealthy to squelch complaints,” said Guy Winch, a psychologist and author of “The Squeaky Wheel.” “By not complaining aloud, it doesn’t mean the dissatisfaction has gone away. You’re just not voicing it.” Some complaints serve as an icebreaker or a bonding experience. Grousing about the weather or traffic is an easy way to start a conversation or simply to avoid standing silently next to each other in an elevator. “It’s one way to create rapport,” said Joanna Wolfe, a professor of English at Carnegie-Mellon University whose research focuses on communication styles. Complaining about a late bus with other riders, for instance, “ creates kind of a solidarity,” she said. “I’ve made friends that way.” So in my ideal world, I would not do away with those kinds of complaints, although Will Bowen, founder of A Complaint Free World, disagrees. “A lot of research has been done that shows complaining is damaging to health, relationships and careers,” he said. “When people go 21 days without a complaint, they say they are happier.” Instead of using a complaint as a conversation opener, he suggested, “talk to them about something good or positive.” But, he said, his message should not be misunderstood. He is not arguing that you can’t note when something is wrong. He says you should just do it directly in a neutral manner to the person responsible, not to everyone around you and not with a voice of outrage. “Say, ‘The soup is cold, and could you warm it up,’ ” said Mr. Bowen, who is an ordained minister and has written the book “A Complaint Free World.” “Not, ‘How dare you serve me cold soup!’ ” Lose the whiny entitled air. I agree with that. Too often people’s annoyance at a mishap or something they disagree with ratchets up to fury in a nanosecond, as if everyone and everything is out to get them. I also agree with Mr. Bowen’s point that we often do not speak frankly to the person doing us wrong. I was in a class where everyone was annoyed at the teacher for regularly failing to show up on time. It was an easily fixable problem, but all of us — about a dozen — complained in whispers to one another for weeks. A few grumbled to other teachers and even spoke to the head of the entire program. But nothing changed. Finally, one brave soul broached the subject directly with our teacher. He responded graciously and started showing up promptly. Mr. Winch said research had shown that when customers bought something they were dissatisfied with, 95 percent would not complain to the company but would voice their dissatisfaction to 10 or 15 friends. What made my class more typical was that it was all women. While women do not complain more than men, Professor Wolfe said, they seem to because of the way they complain. They are more likely to complain rather than request an action, she said, such as saying, “It’s cold in here,” rather than asking to shut a window or turn up the heat. Men, on the other hand, tend to complain more to bolster their egos, she said — attacking a politician’s stance, for example, to show their own astuteness. We may complain differently by sex, but we certainly do it a lot. While studying videos of teams working on creating proposals and brochures, Professor Wolfe found that within an hour, there were 50 expressions of discontent, or close to one complaint a minute. So we have a long way to go toward a complaint-free world, although it may not be for lack of trying. Ten million people in 106 countries have ordered the purple bracelets since the campaign began in 2006, Mr. Bowen said, although he said he did not know how many went a full three weeks without breaking down. If the past is any example, the future will be just as complaint-laden. Rabbi Jay Kelman, a Jewish educator in Toronto, says the Bible talks of the incessant grumbling by the Jews who were led out of Egypt. “They complained about drinks, the leadership, the desert,” he said. They complained that the miraculous substance that sustained them, manna, didn’ t taste like real meat. “They’re taken out as slaves from Egypt and they’ re kvetching about everything.” But, he said, there is a distinction in the Bible between good complaining and bad complaining, “You should complain about social justice,” Rabbi Kelman said. “It shows you are concerned. You don’t want to be too indifferent to complain. But along with the complaint, there has to be action.” Everyone I talked to agreed on that. Just complaining without doing anything about it can make us feel victimized and powerless, Mr. Winch said. But when we get a complaint successfully resolved, we feel we have accomplished something and empowered. And, hopefully, made a positive change. Professor Wolfe said a manager once told her, “ ‘Don’t just sit there and admire the problem. Complain in a way to move toward a solution.’ ” But to complain in the right way, we need to be aware of two things, Mr. Winch said. We need to override the initial defeatist attitude most of us have — that inner voice that says, “Why bother? There’s no point.” And we need to be aware of what we want to achieve by complaining. Resolve a problem? Let someone know about the predicament so it won’t happen in the future? Excuse one’s own failings? Blowing off steam is all right, too, if done judiciously. If I am complaining about my sons’ inability to pick up their clothes from the floor, I probably don’t want advice. I want murmurs of sympathy. But if I did it constantly, I wouldn’t blame my friends for gently telling me to shut up. So back to the idea of a complaint-free world. I have to admit that focusing on complaining has made me aware of some unnecessary negativity on my part. But I’m certainly not ready to abstain altogether. I like indulging in the occasional whine too much. I would, however, settle for a world free of others’ complaints about me. -- -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <[email protected]> Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
