On the Importance of Crying

Ian was agitating to leave for the beach today. As I got into the mini-van to begin the journey, he proclaimed: "Oh, Daddy, we have 20 more seconds to go. I was counting from 100 to see how long we were waiting for you." And since we were not yet out of the driveway, the countdown resumed: "20, 19, 18..."

Since I am twisted, I took something of a pause, to let the counting continue without being interrupted by the excitement of departure. When we reached 0, I wished my three passengers a happy new year, and started driving in earnest.

But Daniel chided Ian for his unrefined motivational tactics: "Don't yell at him - just cry; that's what I do."

I asked Daniel why he cries:

"Because it's more important than yelling."

I strongly suspect that "more important," if the lad were 45 years old and corporate, rather than five years old and anarchical, would be rendered as "more effective," or as one boss I had years ago used to say, in an impeccably pithy formula, "more effective and efficient."

I have thought of this tactic myself. I know an American young lady who, as she was going through Russian exit customs at the end of a short trip, got caught on some breach of that nation's laundry list of technical regulations designed to ensure that you pay every kopek of duties, taxes and surcharges they can get out of you. I'm not sure what the "offense" was - she probably had exchanged dollars for roubles at some unofficial venue for a higher exchange than the official rate, or something similar. But in any case, they caught her somehow attempting to dodge a bureaucratic fee in a way which could now be exploited, after the fact, to extort out of her a much larger fine as she was leaving the country. She didn't want to pay this fine, for whatever reason... So she cried. Because she's blonde and female and 20-something, etc., etc., this strategy actually worked: she got to board her plane without getting fleeced by customs officials on the way out. Crying is sometimes more important.

When I heard that crying worked for her at Russian customs, I eagerly told a friend of mine, who knows that bureaucracy very well from his own travels, that if it were me, I would have cried for the customs official as well. Loudly and brashly. Somehow, my friend didn't think weeping would work quite as well for a pudgy, balding 40-something guy, and he suggested that if I were to employ that strategy for the benefit of a Russian customs officer, I would probably end up discovering what a tazer feels like.

But crying works for some. The petulant count-down works for others. In any case, our two boys are very different in terms of personalities, enthusiasms and impulses. Yet both of them know how to be more effective with the bureaucracy that they face in day-to-day projects like going to the beach. More effective and efficient. And certainly more important.

(May 30, 2011)