Categories: Mark Steyn

Spare me the therapeutic platitudes

I’m supposed to be happy my room complaint is a growth experience for hotel staff?

by Mark Steyn on Thursday, November 12, 2009 1:30pm - 100 Comments

Spare me the therapeutic platitudes As readers may recall, a few weeks ago I was invited to testify at the House of Commons about the Canadian “Human Rights” Commission. While in Ottawa, I stayed at a certain local hostelry that shall be nameless (the Château Laurier). I don’t like to complain. Seriously. I do so much of it for a living that I resent giving it away for free in private. But my room was unsatisfactory in many basic respects, and, a few days after I drew them to the attention of the gal at the checkout desk, an email arrived from the Assistant Manager, Housekeeping, which I quote in full:

“I would like to extend my thanks for bringing these issues to our attention. We truly appreciate Guest feedback, as it enables us to learn and grow from difficult experiences and truly strive to improve the overall Guest experience.

“We have followed up on the issues you have encountered and would like to apologize for these oversites [sic]. Although you mentioned small [sic], such details are an important component of our mission and serve a company-wide standard of consistency.

“Mr. Styen , thank you for staying with the Fairmont Château Laurier. We hope that we can invite you back in the near future.”

I’d forgotten all about my complaint by this time. But this response from the “Assistant Manager, Housekeeping” enraged me far more than my original dissatisfactions. I’m not saying I hurled my computer monitor through the window into the yard and shot up what was left of it while jumping up and down yelling, “You f****** a******! ‘It enables us to learn and grow from difficult experiences?’ What the hell kind of f****** f****** is so f****** f***** as to think the first thing a dissatisfied customer wants to hear is that he’s helped provide a personal growth experience for you, you ********?” Instead, I hurled the monitor through the window and shot it up while pondering two alternatives:

Either the Assistant Manager, Housekeeping is blameless, and this is some form letter cooked up as an auto-response for Cranky Customer Scenario #73 (b) by the Assistant Manager, Customer Relations Flim-Flam at corporate HQ. Which is a dispiriting enough thought.

Or the decay of human communication into a Mogadon-pumped blancmange of pseudo-therapeutic vacuities is so advanced that people now talk like this entirely naturally. “Such details are an important component of our mission and serve a company-wide standard of consistency”: what does that mean translated from the original bollocks?

A couple of weeks later, Jennifer Lynch, QC (Queen Censor) and Chief Commissar of the Canadian “Human Rights” Commission, came to the House of Commons to offer her own view of Section 13. Facing very specific allegations of abuse of power and conflict of interest, she took refuge, like the Château Laurier, in soothing generalities. Indeed, as with the Assistant Manager, Housekeeping, recent difficulties seemed to have provided a marvellous opportunity for a growth experience: “ . . . just to reassure myself as I can reassure you here today that Canadians can have pride in all of the employees of the Canadian Human Rights Commission and the way we carry out our complex mandate.”

“Ms. Lynch, let me stop you there,” said Joe Comartin, the dogged Dipper on the Select Committee. “That’s not an answer to my question. Did you conduct a detailed investigation into these allegations?”

Since the “human rights” racket ran into its little public relations problem with the complaints against this magazine a couple of years back, Commissar Lynch’s technique has been to say at every opportunity how much she “welcomes the debate.” Indeed, she’s been so busy welcoming the debate that sadly she’s had no time to have one. Still, it came as a surprise to see her offer up the same flat bromides to the Parliament to which she is, supposedly, accountable. The Queen Censor spoke to the Select Committee with the same weirdly fixed smile on her face for the full hour. Presumably she fancies this makes her look friendly and reassuring, although movie buffs may find it alarmingly reminiscent of the guy in Invasion of the Body Snatchers who tells you in the evenly modulated voice that the process is completely painless and you won’t feel a thing. Her response to specific questions was to freeze the smile and pause just a little too long before replying, as if the random Form Response Generator was running a bit slow.

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Tags: Chateau Laurier, complaint, house of commons, housekeeping, Human Rights Commission, Ian Fin, Jennifer Lynch, Joe Comartin, Mark Steyn, UN universal Declaration of Human Rights

More by Mark Steyn

Dieter

. Haroon Siddiqui, a lonely defender of state-regulated speech even among his Toronto Star colleagues, was musing the other day about balancing “free speech vs. freedom from hate.”

Sidiqui is the most one sided, narrow, fixated,biased, journalist, I have ever read. And i read his crapola about balancing, and fell of my chair laughing so hard.
Dieter

A state-regulated “harmony is consistent with the cultural Marxism, which is strangling our country.
Patrick Flannery

That was awesome.
witherlovefromFrance

stop bleating you north yankees! Pay a visit round here on the good ol' world. No one(almost) complaints on nothing ever: "they" have succeeded in knockin deep into every's brain that we are still the "most", the" uppers "in every whichway and few question it as Mr Steyn and a few others horrorfully ascertained it in visiting Europe. We are still THE sophisticated, enlightened, unreachable people. We don't need your Mogadon, we sleep so well. Say naïve christian peoples (cause we have long been atheistic here an proud to be so ), is it true that Bible said that Christ shall pop up back most unexpectedly one night?

Kenneth

coo coo

Revnant Dream

Anon Liberal
Try using a black light on the next Hotel , Motel visit. Its a revelation. Trust me.
You will do more than just complain. Stay near a toilet.
http://intensedebate.com/people/s_c_f s_c_f

It really is appalling that people write that kind of crud. I see it all the time these days. "We are renovating in order to serve you better" is one stupid line I see all the time. No, you're not renovating to serve me better, you're renovating to lure me in. Which is fine, but the language is appalling.
http://mypsypotential.com Jean Blom, Shrink

That is exactly what goes on in many psychotherapeutic situations. The therapist, on the one side, has an armamentarium of platitudes. Worse still, the revolving- door patient develops a counter armamentarium of learnt platitudes. The spend the paid hour in exchanging same, nobody goes nowhere, and, of course, everybody is comfortalbe. Ignorance is bliss.
jake buhler

Mark: Your idiotology is outstanding.
London, On

I'm not a fan of Mark Steyn but when the Human Rights Tribunal opens it's mouth and tells me that it loves debate, and that this experience that has been occurring for over three years, is a learning experience. Well, I worry.

When I'm told not only when to think, but what I think, I stop having faith in the system telling me what to do. Suffice it to say, the HRT and it's QC doesn't speak for me. Ever.
Demo

Without a hate, there can be no love. These two emotions compliment each other. This social law of interaction is similar to a law of physics regarding action and reaction. Freedom of expression is guaranteed by constitution. Yet, the criminal and libel laws pervert this constitutional right. Freedom of expression is basic human right and must be absolute. Without this right, all other rights are relative and at hands of political tyrants. It is of interest to note, that parliamentarians have freedom of expression, but Canadians do not.
The freedom of expression should be absolute, no ifs and buts. Without this expressed freedom, political tyrants will abuse their powers to enslave society through public indoctrination (CBC) and other media propaganda. With HRC around us, Canada, once a free country, has become a racist tyranny for the benefit of alien colonization. The HRC should be abolished and its commissars should be prosecuted; not for what they have said, but for what they have done and the misery they caused to many Canadians.
None

I'm sick of Mark Steyn's tiresome bad boy act. This stuff is nothing but a personal growth industry for him. All Steyn does is offer up endless variations on a) why the world is in mortal peril and b) how he has been silenced. He does this while personal insults and lying (as that belated MacLean's Editors note about the fake wifi scandal made clear several weeks ago) the Canadian Human Rights Commission. Of course Steyn can say anything he wants. the problem is he has nothing to say about the supposed mortal dangers we face, either because he doesn't actually care or believe his own rhetoric, or because he can't be bothered to think through the issues and actually propose policies, ideas, or insights. His endless variations on a theme of his own victimization is childish, and despite the ever more colourful and foul language, essentially vacuous.

RDB

The HRC is about institutionalized victimization of an approved kind. Victimization is about lying down and whimpering and looking for support from authority figures. Don’t see much of that here.

The frustrating thing about Steyn is that you think you can stick him in a box and then you look around for a box to stick him in – nope, not there.

Of course, if he is indeed about victimization then he very cleverly makes it about YOUR victimization not his, so you can enjoy getting enraged at the HRC etc.

The most annoying thing about Steyn, though, is that he is so often right, or at least near-enough right. His opponents have nothing left to do except throw around imprecise insults that imply derangement, hate-mongering, wimpiness, immorality, etc. None of which has to do with anything he says, though.

Anonymous

"The frustrating thing about Steyn is that you think you can stick him in a box and then you look around for a box to stick him in – nope, not there."

Steynette briliance at its best.

Bored to Death

Yawwn!

Steyn! You're so bloo** boring!

Yawwn!
David

While I usually don't engage in one upsmanship I must say that you were lucky Mark. At least you got a reply. When I was unable to attend a play at the La Jolla Playhouse recently because there was no available parking and no alternatives were available, I got a curt reply of, "What do you want us to do?" I wanted them to honor the tickets for another show but apparently they wouldn't without a fee. As if it was my fault I couldn't make my regular show. When I sent a written complaint it was ignored. As were two other complaints.
So while agravating, at least the hotel attempted to sooth with platitudes, not so in my case.
http://intensedebate.com/people/MissMicha MissMicha

Harmony requires different pitches, equally expressed, in order to work. Every voice contributes, not only by carrying its own tune, but by bearing the complete score in mind while singing their individual part. Sad to think that what should have been the score for a complex symphony has been reduced to an "in the style of", karaoke tune (emphasis on the empty part).
Lynch et.al. need to stop listening to whatever that sound is on their mp3s and start paying attention to the score as written. Perhaps then the Charter can evolve into something other than a damn fine form letter for CYA.
Fatuous psychobabble is the sociopathic personality's friend. The language of CONcern is their bread and butter. It is the language they speak so that you won't hear the rustle of your life savings leaving the bank. It is also the language spoken to cover the blown lifts on the high heels of Justice as she staggers off through the corridors of power.
By the way, is Omar Khadr home yet?
Farmer Bob

The response from the hotel management was carefully crafted at corporate headquarters. All things these days are carefully crafted at corporate headquarters. Despite all the business guru crap about empowering employees, most large organizations have long ago made a thorough application of the technological solution to all output – including employee communications with 'external customers'. Standardization is seen as the key to quality control. It wouldn't do to have each manager dealing with situations like this according to his or her own lights. Far safer to outline exactly when, where and how communications like this should be handled. The owners of the Chateau Laurier have done what just about everyone else in the corporate world would have done – control the message. For that matter, this type of quality control is the same that the Conservative Party of Canada (like most other political parties) uses to maintain its hold on power – control the message. Interestingly, the private corporate sphere and the Conservative Party of Canada are places where you would think that someone like Mark Steyn would feel right at home. For the reasons I've outlined above, it's clear that Mark wouldn't last a day in either one. He'd be considered too much of a loose cannon. Better that he continue his rant writing career and forgo having to work for a living in a part of the economy where most of the rest of us have to basically just shut up, 'suck it up' and do our jobs.

As far as Steyn's view that the right to 'freedom from hate' is a statist con, I tend to agree somewhat. I don't think we can look to the law to protect us from feeling that other people don't like us very much. But I do support a legal framework for dealing with discrimination of many kinds. I guess in the eyes of some that puts me on the 'slippery slope' to serfdom. Maybe so, but in my view our society's worship of the corporatist technocratic paradigm has already taken us far down the road to serfdom.
Anonymous

Stay tuned…Next week, Steyn loses a quarter in a vending machine and ties that to the CHRC.

You know, I never thought he'd get *this* bad once all the wingnut welfare dried up.
http://laurencemiall.com/ Laurence Miall

What curmudgeonly claptrap. Steyn is amusing, but he’s out to lunch here. He gives away his disdain for ordinary working folk almost immediately: “a few days after I drew them [my complaints] to the attention of the gal at the checkout desk.” We don’t know what exactly was substandard about his room but we can almost be sure that he didn’t mince any words with “the help.”

Steyn then proceeds to make the most spurious analogy between corporate platitudes and those of a bureaucrat brought before a quasi-judicial body. In the former instance, the company, as you would expect, seeks to reassure the customer that it takes his concerns seriously and will avoid future mistakes likes this – you know, to win this customer (and others) back again. The missive could have been better crafted; maybe with your golden plume, Steyn, you might have offered your services.

Imagine, a company trying to retain your business! What an affront! Have you ever run a business Mr. Steyn? Did everything run tickety-boo 100% of the time and you never had to awkwardly rectify a problem, not even once?

Next it’s banging on about that favourite bugbear of the Canadian right: human rights. Funny that when they’re enshrined in, say, the American Constitution, they become inalienable and universal, but in our own tawdry document, they’re sketchy and full of holes. I wonder how it is that a document over 200 years old, written in part by slave owners and replete with anachronisms such as militias have the right to bear arms – this somehow holds up and is sacred, but our own much more contemporary document does not?

Could it be that people like Steyn like to cherry pick which rights would best further their own interests?

But no matter; Steyn is a hero to many because of his fight to protect – what is it exactly? Oh right, hate. It beats in all of our hearts, apparently. What a noble cause to stand for!
WesTexas

Mark, If this newspeak continues you must to refer to the UK as Landing Strip 1.
BHarris

Consistent with your usual high standards, Mr. Steyn. I was still roaring over the image of you engaged in mutilation of your computer when I began feeling the chill up my spine.
quackking

Mr Styen? (Neologisms rampant.) I wish to thank you for appearing in the unexpected role of Sensitivity Tourism GUide. I can assure you that I shall be booking my Holiday Celebration (formerly known as Christmas, then XMas, now Pre-Kwanzaa (or is that Post-Eid?) Winter Solstice revel and walkabout at the Laurier forthwith!
Bathus

All true. And the most beautiful irony is that, if Commissar Lynch and other such "haters of hate" manage to get a hatchet in their hands and a chance to take a few free swings, one discovers they carry within them a shocking reserve of unresolved hatred–yes, shocking, but not surprising, how they hate their fellow humans with a self-satisfied, self-righteous brutality.
Lou

Well, I HATE Jenifer Lynch's politically correct views (and am turned off by her plastic smile and overly-wordy platitudinous remarks). I hope section 13 will be soon repealed and the hate investigation mandate removed from the expensive and dangerous hands of the HRC! Charge me with hate, Jennifer, I dare you!

Guess who is right – blocking the credit card payment would have been the way to go. This is war against political correctness and your Canadian niceness blocked your thinking for a moment … Fortunately, Canadians do retain a capacity for rage, so we need a few grass roots tea parties and a majority government to get this country back to its real values.
http://intensedebate.com/people/madeyoulook madeyoulook

I think I speak for most right-and-proper-thinking Canadians when I ask of you, Mr. Steyn:

That firearm shooting up your computer monitor: is it registered?
http://intensedebate.com/people/monkmonk monkmonk

It was a shotgun which was handed down to him from a relative, so he does not have to register it.
http://intensedebate.com/people/Wakefield Wakefield Tolbert

Really?

Interesting, as I had thought Canadian gun laws would be far more restrictive than that.

But there is no inherent "right" to own any such weapon, and American with firearms, if caught at the border, have them confiscated and destroyed. Or at least they used to. So while Steyn is mostly hanging out in New Hampshire these days, he's still a Canadian citizen, so one supposes he could just cruise on by the border staff with his trusty gun and not raise eyebrows.

Or course, like the message above, I'm being facetious.
Art Jesus

This article is a profile of a man who is teetering on the edge of mental collapse.

I suspect the sychophants complimenting him have already crossed that line long ago.
Bill Simpson

"But, having embraced this pseudo-right, she then claims no one right trumps any other and it is her job to “balance” competing rights. This “balancing act” is a favourite shtick of the thought enforcers."

This is particularly true. The HRC's see us all as squabbling children who have to be taught to share. One of things I always look forward to hearing from small children who are being told to be nice and share their toys or whatever is: "No, it's mine. I'm not sharing."

And the puzzled silence that then follows from the teacher/parent/carer. Followed by cajolement, bribery, punishment or whatever it takes to make someone do what their instinct tells them not to.
RDB

I’ll take this “mental collapse” over your tepid whimpering. It’s exhilarating at least