What's Da Buzz?

The author is a Marriage, Family Therapist for 27 years and helped many people resolve issues with their friends and create healthier friendships.

Are you being a good friend? Do you have friends that you appreciate? Would you like to improve your friendships? Is your loving partner your best friend?

The following are some mistakes friends make and how to improve the relationship.

1) Mistake: Try to fix the person. Solution: Ask the person if they want your help and the kind of assistance they wish to have. Some examples are to just listen, or tell them what you would do in their situation.

2) Mistake: Be impatient. Solution: Be patient. We all appreciate when others are patient with us.

3) Mistake: Be unforgiving. Solution: Forgive others when they blunder. We all make mistakes.

4) Mistake: Discount or judge the other person’s feelings. Solution: Accept all their feelings and help them express them constructively.

5) Mistake: Take personally what your friend says. Solution: Understand that what people say or do is a reflection of them and not you.

6) Mistake: Be indifferent when they are upset. Solution: Comfort the other person when they are hurting by being compassionate and reassuring, listening, giving them a hug, etc.

7) Mistake: Tell people what to do. Solution: Help them solve their own problems with win-win solutions.

Mistake: Be jealous of their success. Solution: Be happy for them when they experience success and reach their goals.

9) Mistake: Drop them when you are romantically involved. Solution: Continue to connect with your friends even when you are in romantic relationships.

10) Mistake: Withhold your thoughts and feelings. Solution: Tell them your thoughts and feelings in a loving way. Take responsibility for them by beginning your sentences with “I feel” or “I think.”

11) Mistake: Break your agreements Solution: Keep your agreements, or inform them before that you wish to change the agreement.

12) Mistake: Do not feel worthy or deserving of the friendships. Solution: Realize that you deserve loving, supportive friends.

13) Mistake: Take them for granted. Solution: Let them know that they are important to you and you are grateful for their friendship.

14) Mistake: Expect them to help you overcome your loneliness. Solution: When you love and like yourself, you are not dependent on others to fulfill your needs.

15) Mistake: Bombard them with your problems. Solution: Ask them first if they are open to hearing a problem you are having and keep it short and to the point. Then focus on the solution.

16) Mistake: Be their leader or follower. Solution: See each other as two equally powerful people.

17) Mistake: Be too busy for friends. Solution: Set aside quality time for your nurturing, supportive friends.

18) Mistake: Try to make them just like you. Solution: Honor who they are and be aware of how you complement each other.

19) Mistake: Be disrespectful and hurtful. Solution: Respect them and be kind.

20) Mistake: Be willing to take abuse. Solution: Love yourself enough to remove yourself from abusive relationships.

Without going into names, we quietly observe other people especially when we know their chosen profession. One of our neighbors who have a young daughter is an employee of a day care. I am well away of how common day care has become for those with children and two jobs.

So out of curiosity, we watch how this day care profession interacts with her daughter who is of day care age. The rationale is if we see what she is like with her child in the home front we’ll know what she is like ‘in the office.’

Well, the conduct of this particular person with her seeming love of yelling at her quite young daughter has chilled us even more on the concept of day care. If the standard treatment of her daughter is any indication, taking care of children is definitely not a strong suit of this particular individual.

Do you know what the people are like at a day care you are considering? How do they treat their own children? Think these things over before shopping your kid around to the lowest bidder.

Live well,

Anah

If you are a cell phone owner and has a contract with a cell phone company, you should check your cell phone bill every month. When consumers’ complaints skyrocketed last year against their cell phone carrier, there’s a reason why. We called it hidden or unexplainable fees, services you didn’t recognize or order when you sign the contract and huge unexpected penalties for everything that includes excessive roaming charges. Those are the painful “contracts” that you are stuck with for 2 years.

One of my co-workers was talking about it this morning. She just received her cell phone bill yesterday and she almost fainted. I couldn’t even begin to imagine how I can afford to pay the huge amount due on that bill. When she showed the bill to me, I was speechless. The roaming charges amount was unbelievable and the two penalties that she couldn’t recognize at all were way too much.

Handling disputes and calling your cell phone company customer care rep would help resolve the issue you have with your bills. Please bear in mind that there are ways how to handle it w/out yelling or screaming to your cell phone company’s customer service rep. Remember to keep your cool. Calling them when you are upset and frustrated will get you nowhere. I should know as I work in a help desk receiving angry calls all day. So from experience, this is what will help you succeed.

1. Be Polite and prepared. Have your customer number or identification information ready. The CSR does not know who you are nor can they readily find you in the database without it. Also, do not cry, scream, yell or threaten to sue. The CSR is trying to do their job. Throwing a tantrum will not help. It will irritate them as you have just picked a fight or whined about a topic they hear over and over. Also explain your situation calmly and firmly. Take notes and write down the rep’s name.

2. Patience and Persistence. Assuming that you have a solid issue, patience in making certain you have the exact answers they can provide and the persistence to stay on the call will be rewarded. However, make certain the topic you are calling about is something they can actually do something about. If it is, stick with the conversation and ask to be bumped up to a supervisor if necessary. Set aside 60 minutes for any potential hold times.

3. Send it in Writing. Sometimes no matter what you do, an issue may not be resolvable on the phone. Again, make certain it is an applicable problem. All too often I hear questions and complaints that have nothing to do with the company I work for. If you have a foot injury, you do not call the dentist. But if you have a dental problem you call a dentist. Sometimes, you need to escalate it to a written complaint letter. Keep it short and to the point and send it to the head of customer relations. This can often be found on the company website.

4. Have a Solid Business Point. You are talking to a company that is looking to generate and maintain a profit margin. If service is not possible because of the difficulty of customer service, inform them of your willingness to take your business elsewhere – to their competition. When you know how much they profit from having you as a customer, multiply by eleven as your word of mouth will cost them 11x what you paid. (You & 10 others that listen to you for your advice on the topic.)

If you are stuck in a long contract and want out without paying a penalty, there are a couple of options.

1. Give it to Someone Else. As we say in our household, sharing is good. Others may want to pick up your plan / arrangement. Websites such as www.cellswapper.com and www.celltradeusa.com can help with cell phone issues.

2. Read the Contract Closely and Wait. All contracts have loopholes in them. Find them, focus on them and read all updates carefully so you can exercise your contractual rights and get out of the plan on a technicality.

Remember to keep your cool. Yelling and screaming will not help you at all. Trust me.