As Dave Carrol was
getting to his seat on the plane, he overheard one of the passengers exclaim that
“the baggage handlers were literally out there throwing guitars”. This worried
Dave since he and his band were musicians traveling to a gig and they had just
checked their guitars.
Sure enough, when he
picked up his baggage, his guitar was damaged beyond repair. He was of course
upset and tried to get the airline to fix its mistake. Yet, like many companies
in our time, they didn’t seem to care much about customer service. After
spending months trying to get them to pay for the damaged equipment, the
airline only said they you give him a $1500 voucher rather than pay for the
$3500 guitar. Except they would do that either because they said Dave had made
the claim incorrectly.
So, what could a
musician do about it? He wrote a song
about it. His ballad United Breaks Guitars was a catch little ditty
about his poor experience with the airline. The song went viral on the
internet. The tune did more than hurt the company’s reputation, however.
The song gathered
enough bad PR for the company that their stock was reduced by 10% costing the
shareholders $180 million. Four days after the song was released, they lost
enough money to pay for 51,000 guitars for Dave.
Do not go out hastily to argue your
case; Otherwise, what will you do in the end, When your neighbor humiliates
you? Argue your case with your neighbor,
And do not reveal the secret of another, Or he who hears it will reproach you,
And the evil report about you will not pass away.
Proverbs 25:8-10
Trying to justify
ourselves when we are wrong oftentimes make thing much worse for us. Instead of
helping ourselves, it just tends to make us look bad. Trying to pick a fight
rather than swallowing our pride will lead to more than just our ego being
bruised. Don’t make bad worse by trying
to justify what you have done.
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