One of my pet peeves is when customers use the word mechanism. I’ve only ever heard it over the phone and in the following context:

Me: What’s wrong with your lock?

Customer: There’s a problem with the mechanism.

Not only is this word only ever used with me in this way, but it’s also only ever used by male customers. And it’s only ever spoken with an unironic air of confidence and expertise. In case you’re not aware, the word mechanism, in this context, is a highfalutin synonym of whatchamajigger. It’s completely meaningless and it does not convey a single iota of knowledge or understanding about locks and how they work.

It occurred to me recently that I hadn’t heard the word in a long time. I started wondering why that was. Did this have something to do with shifting trends in the lexicography of male overconfidence? I pondered this for a while. It wasn’t until after a phone call with a customer that I realized what it was. Instead of asking:

What’s wrong with your lock?

I instead asked:

What’s your lock doing?

I don’t remember if it was a conscious decision to stop asking the first question and start asking the second, but the subtle change has benefitted me and my customers. The first question was an unreasonable one, which demanded too much of the customer. It asked for diagnosis. It’s my job to provide that, not the customer’s. The other question asks for symptoms. That doesn’t require any kind reasoning or hypothesizing about why the lock is malfunctioning. Indeed, the question discourages the kind of unsupported diagnostic description that might set me down the wrong path in my effort to visualize the problem.

So all along it was my bad wording of the question that was inviting a response that annoyed me so much. I’m glad that I, consciously or not, corrected that. As I continue to run my little business there’s a constant drift toward greater efficiency, both in how I perform the physical work and in how I communicate with my customers. Next I have to figure out a way to get my customers to stop telling me about their tumblers. I never have managed to figure out what those are. I suppose they may be a part of the mechanism.