Customer Complaints
Came through the other afternoon, not one I’m fond of, but, shrug, it happens, right?
In retrospect it was even more amusing, dryly ironic, as I have voice mail from the same person thanking me profusely for my guidance.
In a short time, though, “things change.” Sure, I have to understand that.
Customer Complaints
But first? A little Shakespeare astrology?
Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie,
Which we ascribe to heaven. The fated sky
Gives us free scope, only doth backward pull
Our slow designs when we ourselves are dull.
Helena in All’s Well that Ends Well 1.1.119-21
I was listening to that one play, amid one more family crisis, about the third or fourth this week, not really major deals, not to me, but some family members get their knickers knotted up over some notions.
Mars. Mars from stationary to its slow, backward crawl. Not like this is new information, no, mentioned this “Mars is Retrograde” thing before.
“…only doth backward pull/our slow designs when we ourselves are dull.”
It is, to me, a Mars Retrograde play, Shakespeare’s All’s Well That Ends Well, having that other line I like so much, a guy is called, essentially, a coward. Kind of a strange play, sort of a comedy, sort of a drama, depends on how it’s interpreted. Listening to that opening scene though, I was interested again in the way the character phrased it, “Which we ascribe to heaven,” and that carries a dual meaning.
In the theater, specially Shakespeare’s Globe Theater, the “Heavens” referred to the iconic, zodiac images in a starry pattern, right over the stage itself. It is a depiction of the zodiacal belt. In the passage, it could also mean the “good lord above,” whatever, however, that shows up for an individual belief.
“The fated sky/give us free scope.”
Can’t be much more clear than that.
The stars spell it out, but as humans, we have free scope. The current vernacular version? Free will.
Customer Complaints
Ask me for advice, pay me for my time? I’ll offer up the guidance as I see it. I use the best available data. I make an effort to craft the metaphor to person. I’m not always right. Then, too, I tend to reflect back what the client wants, not always, and I’ve been through this before, not always what the client wants to hear, but it’s how I see it.
I’ve been doing this for a long time.
At some point, I have to gather up the material, but someplace, I have that first effort, and it was from 1987. More than 30 years of astrology authorship. Kind of cool form of tenure.
Knowing that Mars is firmly entrenched in its retrograde pattern? That helps, but blaming the planets, that doesn’t really work.
Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie
That single passage, from the opening of the play, kept ringing back and forth in my mind.
Customer Complaint
The question is, why did that one complaint bother me. In the last few years, I’ve suffered less and less at the hands of complaints. Part of this job requires a tough hide. Then, too, there are complaints that are plainly not valid. Or pointed, personal attacks veiled as an offending criticism.
Shrug. It happens.
“If you have a job without aggravations, you don’t have a job.”
—Malcom Forbes
Pink Cake
Pink Cake: The Quote Collection – Kramer Wetzel
Pink Cake
Have to admit, mostly I love my day job.