Remember my grandfather, Andy Sokol, of blessed memory? Net Cotton Content is named for him. (That story is here.)
As a self-made man, a true-life, up-from-the-boot-straps Horatio Alger, my grandfather didn't have much patience for people who kvetched about their daily problems.
He preferred to get on with it. Solve the problem. Ignore it. But, most of all, stop complaining.
Here's How He Stopped Complainers.
Andy would simply hand them a small card. He had a stack of these printed, back when printing was a much more hands-on, more expensive activity.
They were business-card sized, but they were big enough to produce a laugh from everyone — and get the conversation back on track.
Of course, this was before the invention of the Complaint Desk.
It was before we were a service economy.
For Andy, the customer was always right. But not every complaint was worth the time it took to voice.