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How to Win Friends and Influence People: A Book on Downward Mobility

We are three days into our vacation and I’m very slowly beginning to relax. Stress is not something you can turn off and on like the flip of a switch. It must be an inherent American trait.

I brought a handful of books to read including Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People—an oldie, but goodie. It must have been at least a decade since I read this book because Principle 1 states: Don’t criticize, condemn or complain. Hello? How do you get what you want if you don’t criticize, condemn, or complain??? Let’s just start when we got to the hotel. I could not log into the wifi connection.

The office attendant assured me that she gave me the correct passcode. I tried and tried. The connection timed out, the passcode was rendered invalid. I asked for a cable for a hardwire connection. That didn’t solve the problem either.

After trying to solve the problem on my own, I clearly wasn’t getting anywhere. I called back down to the office, “My wireless connection isn’t working. I need to be online.”

Without skipping a beat, she repeated, “Have you tried calling the other office? They have tech support at the other office.”

“NO!” I screamed. “Why don’t YOU call the other office and troubleshoot this for me? Call me back when it’s fixed.”

She called back a few minutes later, “They changed the passcode without letting me know. Let me give you the correct one.”

While I was flipping through the Dale Carnegie book, I rolled my eyes. If I hadn’t complained, I would’ve befriended a hotel attendant, but been here for a week without internet access! This book is dumb. I must have last read it when I was pulling in minimum wage.

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08.25.12

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Welcome to my site, derived from an advice column I wrote while getting my MBA. I live in the San Francisco Bay Area. I give helpful, opinionated advice based on my own experience and from the expertise of my extensive network. For more, click here.

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