#966 Please and Thank You

A couple of weeks ago, I took pictures of two signs I encountered on shop windows. The signs were about wearing masks in the store but were worded very differently. I posted the pics on Linked in and asked folks to offer their preference and tell me why.

  One sign read “NO MASK, NO SERVICE” The other was a “PLEASE WEAR A MASK. THANK YOU”

The results were fascinating. I had expected an overwhelming majority to choose the please and thank you sign. I couldn’t imagine why anyone would opt for the more draconian sign that ordered them to wear masks.

I learned a lot from that post. Not only did many people prefer the no mask, no service sign; they had good reasons!  

They said, essentially, that the please and thank you sign is open to interpretation, choice, and possible confrontation. They said the sign was asking you, not requiring you to mask up.  They said someone could read that sign and choose to enter the store unmasked, which was not only a potential health risk but also a catalyst for a confrontation with pro-mask people in the store. Their reasoning had never occurred to me. I just thought, “What a rude sign. Who welcomes their customers in so impolitely?”

The people who picked the please and thank you sign had the same rationale as me and thought that civility should carry the day.

So what’s the lesson here? For me, it is to seek out opposite opinions and listen. 

So much of what we see these days is fed to us based on our point-and-click biases that we don’t often get to read dissenting opinions.

What I learned is that my knee-jerk reaction that I was right was wrong. As my darling Alicia says, no matter how flat you make a pancake, it still has two sides. After doing this pole and opening my mind, I’d aim for definite and civil if I owned a shop.

My sign would read. 

 PLEASE WEAR A MASK. WE WILL NOT SERVE YOU WITHOUT ONE. THANK YOU” 

Own Your Sales Gene…