Joshua’s Cape Rants, raves and insights from the kid who loved his cape.

Thank you for calling, I can help you!

This is how most people seemed to be when I worked at CompUSA.

I work in customer service. It's thinly disguised as a tech job, but really, if we're honest with ourselves, my job is all about warm and fuzzies. If I can solve the problem, great, if I can't, but the customer feels warm and fuzzy, well that's just as good.

This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but as a problem solver, for the first few months here I was less concerned with the 'warm fuzzies' aspect of the job and more concerned with solving the problem, which was how my last job was. Warm fuzzies were mostly irrelevant. The goal was to solve the problem.

A few weeks ago we were assigned a project at work. I found it to be mostly asinine, and a general waste of my life. Later I found out I should have put more time into it. More on that in another post.

The project was to contact several support outfits of companies we were likely to work with three different ways. Phone, email, and instant support like chat.

The company I dealt with over the phone had their operators answer with 'Hello this is Sue with [insert company here] I can help you!'

I had two initial reactions to this.

1. Ew. I hate over-zealous proactivity that is clearly perpetrated by arbitrary quality assurance guidelines that these people are supposed to meet.
2. This is the attitude God has when we pray.

I know, two very different, strange thoughts. Welcome to my world.

The important thing to note here is that the person on the other end of the line isn't asking HOW they can help you, because chances are they know better than you how they can help you, so why would they ask you what you think they should do. Why would you be calling them if you already knew how to fix the problem?

When you say 'How can I help you' you're doing two things:

1. You're giving the power to whomever you're talking to to tell you how to solve their problem. Now, this can be a good and bad thing. It's good because people who have problems like to tell other people how they want it fixed. It feels good, makes them feel like they have control of the situation. The problem with this is at some point, you're likely going to need to wrench control back from that person, which they are not likely to appreciate.

2. It opens the floor for them to vent. This is always a good thing. A top-ten rule of support is listen. Just listen. Sometimes, people just need to vent. As long as they aren't vulgar or straight-up insulting, that's okay. When people feel like they've been heard, it's a good thing.

When you say 'I can help you,' you're taking that power back and essentially saying, 'tell me the problem, and I'll get it fixed. Don't worry about how, just know that I can fix it, after all, I'm the one that's trained to help you.'

I don't think God ever answers the phone with 'How can I help you?' He's God. Why would He ask how we want a problem solved?

And when you've gone to God with a 'here's how I want you to do this' attitude, how did that work out for you? Good? Did He do exactly what you were expecting? Or did He show up in some completely unexpected and awesome fashion?

Maybe this is particular to my life, but God never works how I think He will, and frankly, I love that.

Sure, I have expectations when I pray, which is something I've talked about before, and those expectations are that God will move. I expect that He will move however HE sees fit, not however I see fit.

I am of the opinion that when you pray, God says, I CAN Help you. Not, How can I help you. If we pray with this attitude, confident that He will do what He does best, how would our lives change?

'Thank you for praying, Jesus speaking, I can help you!'