You Can’t Reason with Crazy

Try this one on for size. A number of years ago, four to be exact, we were enjoying a successful relationship with a company we had contracted with since 1995. By all accounts, the firm was doing a good job for us. In 2007, one of the key people employed by the firm decided to leave and go out on his own.

At the time of his departure from the contractor, the employee contacted us to inquire about our interest in having him continue to do the work at his newly formed firm. Of course, this would have required us to cancel our contract with a company with which we had enjoyed a long and satisfying relationship. We politely declined, telling him that we were happy with our current relationship.

It was apparent at the time that he wasn’t satisfied with our response, but after a couple more runs at our business he went away. Or so we thought.

A few weeks ago, we were fortunate enough to once again hear from him. But this time his correspondence was much more aggressive and sarcastic.

What was the occasion for him contacting us again after four years? It seems a colleague he had worked with on our account recently left the contractor that we continue to use to this day. Our disgruntled friend contacted us, by sending an e-mail to our general customer service box, to inquire about whether or not we had “ditched” his former colleague as we had him.

What’s ironic here is that the former colleague who had left the contractor never contacted us to solicit our business. Nor did he inform us of his impending departure. The firm let us know he no longer was working for them. It was that plain and simple.

A polite e-mail from our customer service department was met with a “let me refresh your memory” response. After two weeks of nothing further from us, we received an “am I not due a response” e-mail from our friend. One of my colleagues, being the polite fellow he is, sent a second e-mail of explanation intending to put an end to the matter. Instead, he was met with a “you don’t understand much” and “try reading for a change” response from our increasingly hostile e-mail pal.

It was at this point that I decided to jump in. I’d had it with him not only wasting the time of our staff, but he was being rude and treating them in a way I found condescending and arrogant.

I fired off my own response thanking him for confirming the decision we made four years ago to stay with our current contractor, telling him that our staff had been far more patient with his “irrational rants” than I would have been, and informing him that we’d remove his name from our records and asking him to do the same.

In response to his question about being due the courtesy of a reply, he was told that he wasn’t due anything from our organization in response to his harassing email. I also informed him that no one in our organization would respond to any future correspondence from him.

He was undeterred. I received three emails from him in the next 30 minutes, all threatening some type of dire consequence. (You can’t make this stuff up!) With no response from our end, his threatening e-mails came to a halt. It was an interesting run.

So, what’s the point in sharing this little story with you?

There’s a lesson in it for all of us. Sometimes despite the best of intentions and your sincerest effort to be reasonable, you’re going to have someone who is upset with your decisions. You can try as you like to change the way he feels, but it won’t work. In the end, you need to make a decision that’s best for the company or yourself, as the case may be. And, if ultimately someone is unhappy about your decision, well, he’s going to have to get over it. Even if it takes him four years or more!

You can’t become consumed with keeping everyone happy all of the time. It’s not going to happen. It’s just not possible. You need to be able to be confident in your decision and move on — even if they can’t. All the explaining and reasoning isn’t going to work if they don’t want to be convinced. Like they say, “you can’t reason with crazy!”