We live in a world of fast food, convenience stores and as I told my first daughter starting to drive: " If you believe the mentality that everybody is out for themself, then you'll do fine driving. "
But of course, this applies to everyday life. And as I told her, there will be a few exceptions that surprise you, like upon turning on your blinker to merge lanes, somebody will actually make space for you (as opposed to speeding up).
But the defacto standard is that you have to assume people are out for themselves and unless you directly guide them to your anticipated outcome, they will take the easiest path for themselves.
Walmart did a study a few years ago - to realize the value of a customer's time. They found out that people have places to go, things to do, etc... and that their customers' waiting in line or checking out jeapardizes that value that people put on their own time. Resulting action was to improve checkout times: more checkout lanes at stores and redesigning their website to streamline the checkout screen to half as many pages/clicks.
So it is up to us to create an environment/website/interface/etc that passively, yet actively guides them to properly fulfill the information that we need from them.
If you leave a doctor to fill out a hand-written form, what do you think you'll get?
If any customer doesn't think some information is important, then they'll leave it out - you must put stopgaps and checks to insure that they fill out the information correctly. It's that extra step once on the front end that makes our backend processing that much easier.
So to people care? Yes, about THEIR time, not ours.
Paul,
I agree totally. I struggle with how to continually combat the apathy and instill values such as busting your butt & always doing your best in my own children. One of the reasons I joined this website was the oppurtunity to get great coaching, from photographers such as yourself and many who have already commented on this thread, to improve my skills.
Jefferson wrote:
Develop an online form that allows for all fields to be accurately completed before submission... on your website
Jefferson
More than half will show up to the shoot without the form and will have to fill it out at the shoot creating even more of a bottleneck at the sales area. Apathy is everywhere. Even if I hired someone to fill out the form for them in advance at their home, there would be an excuse.
My wife is a 2nd grade teacher and the stuff she comes home and tells me honestly makes me fear for the future of this great nation. Stories that every teacher in the public school system can both echo and/or amplify.
I shoot primarily competitive cheer and have had to learn that the parents truly don't care. They want a product as cheap and as quickly as possible for the least amount of their time.
Like Hammy said.....they only care about one thing...themselves.
Paul, I feel your pain brother. I am going through a small wrestling T&I shoot (about 60 kids) and it is a nightmare, yet I just did a 200 kid basketball league yesterday and there weren't nearly as many 'head-scratchers'. Go figure.
I should add what my father always told me, "If something's worth doing, it's worth doing it right." He also said, "If you're gonna play in Texas, you gotta have a fiddle in the band." but I think he just like the band Alabama a lot.
I feel your pain! It's always our fault.... Last week my wife was processing the envelopes after a shoot. I hear a burst of laughter from the kitchen.... I ask her what's up (she not allowed to have fun processing envelopes )... She replies, trader info.... Place of birth....Hospital!" We see it all don't we!
Wrei wrote:
When I was a little league umpire, I heard this comment from a kid to his coach: "Why should I run harder...we are all going to get a trophy at the end of the season?"
The sad thing is that the kid is right. Gone are the days of 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place trophies where the 1st place was big and the others in descending size. Now everyone gets a participation trophy and a pat on the back irregardless of their talent, team, or personal effort.
