Hypnotic Language And Its Limitations

Posted on 30 July 2007

All this weekend has been taken up with moving home. The fact that we only moved about 75 feet across the road made things somewhat easier but the Florida heat that took us over 100 degrees when you factor in the humidity removed most of that advantage.

Things went as well as can be expected until about 4.00pm. At that time the guy from Progress Energy turned up and cut off the power. He wasn’t supposed to, it was booked as a simple transfer but by the time we got outside to see what was happening he was driving off down the road.

I phoned Progress up and explained our predicament and was told they would send somebody out on Monday. As this was now Friday it wouldn’t be unfair to say I was somewhat miffed. I remembered a Blog I did some while ago about asking for help and proceeded to plead my case by explaining I was a pasty Limey that wouldn’t last until Monday without air conditioning. The lady said she would get hold of the guy and tell him to go back and re-connect. What a star! They made a mistake and they were doing what they could to rectify it.

Then there was a knock on the door and it was the DirecTv guy. I explained our situation and asked if he could do the dish fixing bit until we had power and then he could finish off inside. I was quietly confident that I was on a roll and liberally tossed in a few embedded commands and hypnotic language patterns that guaranteed this guy would not only do as I told him but would no doubt help us unpack a few boxes and hang a few pictures too.

It was by now about 4.30pm on a Friday afternoon and I hadn’t reckoned on one crucial thing that was much more powerful than any flowery words I could use. This guy could smell the weekend and was not in the least bit interested in what I was saying. I could have been telling him that I loved his mother and we were preparing to elope to Peru together and raise Llamas and he wouldn’t have cared. So I gave up safe in the knowledge that I could manage 3 or 4 days without TV although I have to admit I was a tad crestfallen.

To add insult to injury, Mr Sheepish the man from Progress turned up less than 10 minutes later apologizing profusely and turned the power back on.