Communication: Tempering the FAEV with the VOUC

As previously noted, the two-year employee tends to communicate solely in the Four-Alarm Emergency Voice, or FAEV. The Manager has put forth a consistent, maddening effort to temper the FAEV with the Voice of Utmost Calm, or VOUC. One of these days it is going to stick, I am sure. I must be sure, or I will lose all resolve in continuing this effort.

Communication between Management and employee typically unfolds like so:
K.Lo: I want some juice, Manager!
The Manager: And how do we ask for juice, K.Lo?
K.Lo: Need juice! Need juice! Need juuuuuuuuuuuice!
The Manager: We say, "May I have some juice, please?"
K.Lo: Say pleeeease!
The Manager: That's right. And then I say, "Yes, you may have juice." And you say--
K.Lo: Thank you.
The Manager: That's right, and then I say, "You're welcome."
K.Lo: You're welcome.

By the end of the conversation, the two-year employee has usually lowered her volume, and The Manager's toes have uncurled long enough to give the small employee credit for at least saying, "Thank you." There still does remain an air of impatient desperation with the two-year set, as well as incredulity at this forced, polite process. Yet, the Manager persists in her wild-eyed quest for polite, pleasant employees, not to mention a blood pressure reading that falls into a healthy range.

Here at our company, we never lag in our determined use of the VOUC. Because rest assured, the very next time K.Lo requires juice, or the filling of some other critical two-year employee need, Management's ears will once again ring with the dreaded FAEV.