A few weeks ago, while flying home from I-can’t-remember-where, I was brainstorming a bunch of blog topics. I was in a marketing mindset and so I thought about what would be the most difficult thing on the planet to sell. Then, as my neighbor bumped me while trying to reach his over-sized backpack under the seat in front of him, it dawned on me.
The hardest thing to sell to someone is the dreaded middle seat!
You read about hiring managers asking candidates to give them a sales pitch on obscure items like paperclips and pencils. A real challenge would be upselling a customer on the middle seat.
Why the middle seat?
It sucks.
- You have to fight for control of the armrest.
- You get neither the elbow room of the aisle seat nor the bulkhead to rest against of the window seat.
- Your fellow passengers resent you.
- You have to ask permission to get out of the seat to use the bathroom.
Did I mention it also sucks?
So it would be a tough sell.
I thought about the selling points:
- You get to network with both seatmates simultaneously.
- You don’t get whacked in the head by people’s backpacks like the person in the aisle seat does.
- You don’t have to ask two people to move if you have to use the bathroom like the guy in the window seat does.
- Sometimes people feel sorry for you and give you free drink coupons.
Most of this of course is B.S.
But a few weeks later I was trying to get on standby for an earlier flight home. It was the difference between getting to spend a little time with my family that night or roll up my driveway sometime after 1AM. I stood nervously at the ticket counter crossing my fingers and praying that there would be at least one seat left.
Finally the gate agent told me I was in luck. There was a seat. Just one seat.
…and you guessed it, a middle seat.
As I squeezed in between a fat bald guy that smelled like beef jerky and a woman with a small yapping dog in a soft crate under the seat, I knew I was one of the luckiest guys in the planet. I was in a seat. On a plane. Heading home early. Thank God I got a middle seat.
Sometimes we find ourselves complaining about circumstances beyond our control. This week I worked one-on-one with several employees who were miserable in their current positions. After doing some listening and helping them look at their situation differently, they realized that while they may not be happy, they:
- had a job, that
- paid a good salary, and
- had good benefits, and
- matched their 401K contributions,
- and didn’t put them in any danger,
- and occasionally offered little perks.
Sure sometimes it had all the luster of a middle seat, but it was indeed a seat. And that seat, for all it’s flaws, was there to take care of them.
This week, let’s all take a look at what we might see as a middle seat. Maybe we can learn to appreciate it for its real value.
What do you think?
