The Banjo-legs of Customer Support

Was cruising past the pond today and I saw the strangest thing. A goose with a banjo-leg.



For those from more Northern latitudes, a banjo-leg is the strange condition that a dog gets when you scratch his belly just so ... and one of his back legs starts working all by itself. One could say that it's a semiquaver from a itch needin scratched, and you'd be almost right, because what the dog is really doing is picking an imaginary banjo with that strumming leg. It's a musical itch. If you don't believe me, just try it. Scratch your old dog just so ... and when that leg gets to strumming, sing these words:

Chicken in the bread pan pickin out dough.
Granny, does your dog bite? No, child, no.

Just see if your poor hound doesn't look back at you, forlorn and bedraggled, with that "You SO did not go there" expression.

I used to believe that dogs were the only animals with banjo-legs, and I was ... yet to be enlightened. How it hurts to say it. Fortunately, Enlightenment was right around the corner! I was having a bad day at the Corporation, so I drove to the pond to contemplate Nature. There was a goose, a brand new goose by the way, standing on one leg in that classic "I'm sleeping, leave me alone" pose. Then, as if by magic, the other leg began strumming. It became a banjo-leg! I don't know if it was a dream, or one legged aerobics, or what ... but all of the sudden the events of the day became perfectly clear to me.

Humans have banjo-legs too.

It's not in their real legs though, but in their emotional legs. Don't believe me? Try this the next time your in your favorite Corporate customer support office ...

"Hey, Joe SoAndSo, a customer called with a software problem. They need Sum_Thingy changed really bad."

Presto! Mere moments after your coworkers' hollow, horrified indignation comes the more familiar strumming ... the emotional banjo-leg ...

"It can't be done. It quite simply can't be done."

Why?

"There's no money. There's no feasibility. We don't have the staffing for that. We can't put that on one of our networks. There's licensing issues. There's no approvals."

Really there's no willingness to try, no courage to actually TALK to someone who can solve the problem. A whole department with the moral substance of a popcorn fart. So, the banjo-leg goes faster and faster, and when it reaches an incredible, butt-tingling speed ... out pops:

"It's impossible!"

But all you them saying is:

Chicken in the bread pan pickin out dough.
Granny, does your dog bite? No, child, no!