I walked into work last Monday and saw the below piece of paper on the driveway. It was face up so I thought I would stop and read it to ensure it wasn’t anyone’s personal information, etc. This quickly turned into a persuasion exercise and I immediately thought – wow! This is an example of how not to persuade your neighbours.
Let’s review some of the mistakes.
Line #1 – “To Neighbour”, not Dear Neighbour or hi just “To”. This is not personal and sets the tone for the note – it is a direction not an invite to cooperate.
Line #2 – “Unit 4 will be moving on Thursday 4th September 2014 at 7.30am. We will have the truck in the driveway from that time until 9.30am”
Great it gives the details and after Line #1 I may excuse the tone as they are helping me out with some helpful information – perhaps to let me know that I might be impacted by their actions.
Here comes the cracker though – no cooperation, no consideration, just a self-centered slap in the face “Can you please move your vehicles prior to that time. To ensure minimum movement of the truck”
“Sorry for any inconvenience” is that a statement to themselves that they are sorry for the inconvenience my vehicles are causing them or sorry for the inconvenience of having to take the time to write this note!!
Now I get why the note was on the driveway and had been run over several times.
This is a classic example of it all being about the author. There is no effort or thought of the other party – just very selfish and self-centered direction. All so they don’t have to move the truck – bah-humbug!
What if they had of written something like this:
Hi fellow residents of 123 XYZ Street,
You may have seen some activity in Unit 4 lately. Our time is up and we are moving to a new home so we wanted to give you as much detail about the move as we could because of our shared driveway.
We have a removal truck booked for Thursday 4th September 2014. So as not to park you in or cause you any surprise, the truck will be onsite from 7.30-9.30am. We know this is a prime time for people coming and going so we would like to park the truck in the visitors bay near the door because we want to reduce disruption to you and your family/colleagues.
We will be in the carpark from 7am to see if any cars are impeded by the truck. You may like to move your cars earlier or even the night before if you are concerned but of course it is entirely up to you. If you think this movement will impact on you adversely please let us know on the numbers below or just come and knock on the door.
Thanks
Bill & Jen (Unit 4)
Bill – 0434555111 / Jen 0434 555555
Let me know how you would have written it.
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