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Acknowledgments vii
Author's Note ix
Introduction 1
1 The Ineffective Squeaker Doesn't Get the Grease 5
The Mystery of Complaining Impotence 10
The Golden Age of Effective Complaining 13
Venting: A Quest for Emotional Validation 16
The Safety Manual for Incident-Free Venting 19
Complaints as Social Communications 22
The Anti-Complaining Movement 24
The Demise of Ye Olde Complaint Box 27
How Ineffective Have We Become? 30
Ineffective Complaining in Our Personal Lives 35
The Rise of Cyber-Squeaking 38
2 The Trouble with Bill-the Hidden Costs of Ineffective Squeaking 40
The Internet Complaint Industry 42
The Dark Side of Internet Complaint Sites 46
Denying Our Inner Effective Complainer 48
Complaint Avoidance as Self-fulfilling Prophecy 50
Self-fulfilling Prophecies That Defeat Entire Communities 53
Learning Learned Helplessness 55
Effective Complaining: An Essential Life Skill 58
To Blame or Not to Blame 61
Seeing Our Complaints as Half-Full 64
Unlearning Learned Helplessness 66
3 Complaining Therapy-Squeaking Our Way to Self-esteem 71
A Heartbreaking Dating Service 73
Self-esteem's Identity Crisis 78
Effective Complaining: The Antidote for Victimization 83
Saving Steve from a Broken Heart 87
Heart-Attack-Prone Personalities 90
Choosing Our Complaints Wisely 93
Complaining Therapy Does Not Require a Therapist 97
Steps for Complaining Therapy at Home 102
4 When to Squeak-How to Avoid Complaining Dangers 105
Complaint Boomerangs 108
Chronic Complainers Start Young 111
We Are the Yams We Spin 113
None Are So Blind as Chronic Complainers 125
For Whom the Bell Complains 118
Fraudulent Chronic Complainers 125
The Dangers of Undercomplaining at the Doctor's Office 129
So Many Therapists, So Few Complaints 134
Effective Complaining as Psychological Tool Kit 138
5 The Ingredients for Serving a Delicious Squeak 140
Killing a Complaint Softly with Anger 141
Emotions, We Hardly Knew Ye 143
Zen and the Art of Emotional Regulation 245
Reframe, Baby, Reframe! 148
How to Prepare a Complaint Sandwich 150
The Bell Should Toll Just Once 155
Beefing Up the Meat 157
All Sales Are Mostly Final! 159
Scooby-Doo and the Case of the Haunted Mailbox 160
Factors Affecting Our Perceptions of Truth 162
A Scooby-Doo Stakeout 165
Eliciting Help from Strangers 166
Complaint-Sandwich Condiments 170
6 The Art of Squeaking to Loved Ones 171
Complaining Scenes from a Bad Marriage 174
The Fifth Horseman of Marital Apocalypse 181
Effective Complaining as a Couplehood Enhancer 184
Detoxifying a Toxic Couple 192
The Teen Whisperer 194
The Parent-Teen Demand/Withdraw Merry-go-round 195
Getting Off the Demand/Withdraw Merry-go-round 197
Male Friendships: Complaining in Silence 199
Female Friendships: Complaining Deeper and Growing Closer 203
Receiving Complaints from Others: How to Eat a Complaint Sandwich 205
7 Getting Squeaked at for a Living: The Customer Service Professional 210
The Call-Center Customer Service Obstacle Course 213
What the Bus Stop Lunatic Needed to Know About Call Centers but Didn't 217
Lunatics No More: An Effective Complaining Redo 219
The Correct Way to Handle Customer Complaints 221
Unmasking the Call-Center Representative 224
A Day in the Life of a Professional Punching Bag 228
The Heavenly Call Center 232
8 Squeaking as Social Activism 236
Dead Heroes Cannot Complain 242
Complaining and, Yes, Complimenting Our Way to Better Communities 245
Compliments Seem to Be the Hardest Words 246
A Tree Grows in Manhattan 249
The Joy of Overrepresentation 253
How Many Complaints Does it Take to Change a Lightbulb? 256
Drowning in Homework 257
Waiting-Room Blues 260
Potty Parity: When Equal Means Twice as Many 262
Effective-Complaining Utopias 264
Epilogue: Squeaking on Social Media 267
Notes 269
Index 285
etMoi
Posted January 6, 2011
Guy Winch's The Squeaky Wheel is an eye-opener. He takes us on a journey that forces us to examine our own behaviors and our relationships and come to startling conclusions. Have I been guilty of getting incredible annoyed about consumer complaints but feeling too helpless to pursue them effectively? Sure, we all have. Did some of them nag at me and irritate me for days or weeks? Yes. But as he points out, most of us do not feel we have the tools to handle such things effectrively and so we let them slide and we let our frustrations accumulate. What really worked for me about the book is that Winch does not merely provide us with the kind of information, techniques and advice we need to do something about our complaints, but he does so in a way that makes you feel empowered. Reading the book makes you feel like you're actually looking forward for the next consumer complaint to come along so you can handle it effectively and feel good about such things for once, rather than defeated.
Winch's chapter about complaining to significant others is a revelation. It could have been a whole book unto itself. The techniques he discusses are not only logical and sound but extremely doable. Perhaps that's what he does best throughout his book, break down psychological concepts and advice into very grounded and doable bits that anyone could follow and benefit from.
His last chapter about complaining as social adtivism will make you laugh and cry and then laugh again. If the Squeaky Wheel is supposed to be a call to arms, a summons to speak up and take control of our lives, I for one, am eager to enlist.
Extraordinarily well done!!
LendMe™