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On nearly a daily basis, I find myself asking the question, “What has happened to customer service these days?” Perhaps part of the problem is that I’ve let the corporate-speak term “customer service” enter into my vocabulary. How about just treating me fairly? Then you won’t have to invent an entire department filled with employees with fictitious titles, absolutely no authority to make decisions, and call them “customer service representatives.” Frankly, I don’t feel well represented.

Case in point: a certain telephone company runs ads saying that you should switch to their DSL-based high speed internet service because they’ll give you the same speed as the cable company, but at a much lower price. Great. Sign me up. Which I did, 7 weeks ago. After three different sets of technicians came out to try to get it right, the best they could do was a speed roughly 8 times slower than what I was already getting with cable. Fine, I’ll stick with what was already working well, so I call the phone company to cancel. “I don’t have the authority to cancel your account,” says CSR #1, “but I’ll have someone who can call you tomorrow.” Translation: when it’s convenient for us. In all it took me five different phone calls and a trip to one of their stores to finally get the account canceled. I’d estimate I spent 15 hours getting that done. What does that tell you about how well this customer was represented?

Counterpoint. I’ve got a development team completely immersed in Ruby on Rails. One of the bibles of Rails development is Agile Web Development with Rails by Dave Thomas and David Heinemeier Hansson, so I bought a handful of copies for the team. While looking something up in one of the copies last night, I noticed my page numbering went from 56 directly to 89, so I sent a note to the publisher, The Pragmatic Bookshelf. Not even an hour later, I got an e-mail from Ellie Callahan at The Pragmatic Bookshelf, asking for my address so that they could express ship a new copy to me, no questions asked. There was no, “I don’t have the authority to…” or “…someone will call you tomorrow.” She simply apologized for the printing error and took take of the problem. They now have a customer for life.

It’s something simple we impress upon the people here at Barefoot all the time. Do the right thing. Do the best work possible. Treat our clients and co-workers fairly.

One of the two companies mentioned above will not only continue to get my business, but they will get my support and recommendation as well. The other will not. I’ve quite literally put my money where my mouth is by linking to those I recommend.

One of our copywriters here at Barefoot, Sarah Knott, brought to my attention a study published in the March 21 issue of the journal Science that suggests people gain even more happiness when they spend their money on other people than when they buy stuff for themselves. You can read a nice overview of the research here on Yahoo Health.

While I think these findings confirm what most of us would intuit, it still offers up some good food for thought when it comes to marketing products. How might we as marketers add a philanthropic aspect to our brands that makes people more likely to engage with them, spend money on them, and feel better about doing so. I suppose the whole “(RED)” initiative to help fight AIDS is one clear example (though there’s considerable controversy over this specific program because the money spent advertising it has so far outpaced the money raised for the charity). I can also think about some fly fishing equipment I have bought from brands that support conservation efforts, which has made me more passionate about the brands, and, yes, more happy with myself.

New research, just announced in the journal Pyschological Science, suggests that happiness is, in part, genetic. The University of Edinburgh study of about 1,000 pairs of twins, identical and not identical, concluded that genes accounted for about 50% of the personality traits that make people happy. (Our relationships, health and jobs contribute the other 50%.)

The study showed that identical twins, who share the same genes, were dramatically more likely to be happy than their non-identical twin counterparts who don’t share the same genes. “This strongly implicates genes” as a key factor in happiness, the study director told Reuters.

By the way, what are those personality traits that keep a smile on their owners’ faces? According to this study: It’s being sociable, stable, hardworking and conscientious. (See, your grandmother was right, if you’re kind and have a strong work ethic, you’ll get more out of life.) Of course, owning a BMW or a high-end fly-fishing rod doesn’t hurt either.

Is their a particular “brand” of American happiness? It sure seems so. We Americans see happiness as a right, literally and figuratively. Perhaps that why so many of us so eagerly seek out one of the countless books about how to get and stay happy whenever we feel we’re not getting a big enough, or a tasty enough, slice, of that big ol’ American pie. For many of us, lack of happiness isn’t so much a “phase” or an indication of life’s vicissitudes, as it is a clear indication that something must be horribly wrong, that something is (cruelly and unjustly) preventing us from attaining our God-given right to happiness.

WATERMELONS

Green Buddhas

On the fruit stand.

We eat the smile

And spit out the teeth.

60 Minutes recently ran a segment on Denmark, which once again ranked first in the world in terms of the happiness of the population.

Morley Safer interviewed a number of Danes to determine why they thought ranked consistently as the most happiest people in the world, and particularly why they thought it might be that they were happier than Americans. Their answers basically centered upon the idea of having more realistic expectations from life, so that they were less frequently frustrated or disappointed. A piece of advice they proffered up to Americans was not to be so “preoccupied with the American Dream.” They also attributed their happiness to the amount of value they place on friendships, family, and spending time with both.

The role that meaningful relationships with family and friends plays with regard to personal happiness was validated in an interview with Tal Ben-Shahar, a professor at Harvard, who teaches a course on Positive Psychology — basically a primer for his students on how to be happier today.

Tal espouses that as a society too many of us are willing to sacrifice happiness today with the hope that we’ll be happier in the future. We’ll be happier once we get that bigger house, that bigger car, that promotion, etc.

No surprise to us here at Barefoot, but that is simply not true. You need to choose to do what makes you happy today, but importantly, not at the expense of being happy tomorrow. That would not be happiness, that would be hedonism.

A new study published recently in the journal Perspectives on Psychological Science suggests that if we feel super-duper happy, we are likely not as well off as those who feel only moderately happy. The study found that those who scored their happiness as a 10 (on a 1 to 10 scale) earned less money. The uber-happy students in the study received lower grades. The researcher’s conclusion? In short, if you’re “too happy” you get lazy, you don’t work as hard, you’re not as motivated to find new ways of doing or approaching whatever that lead you to being happier. “…we need negative emotions,” is how one of the study’s authors put it. Now, no one wants to be too low on the happiness scale, but if you really think you’re perfectly happy, you may want to reconsider. For you own good, that is.

Those who read this blog know that I trade-up for books. Not only do I have a “thing” for books, I even wrote one back in 2003. It’s a childhood memoir called Running from the Devil. It’s about my 1970’s youth and some pretty big secrets I kept. It sounds kind of heavy, and in some ways it is, but the story is mostly light-hearted. Publisher’s Weekly called the book “hilarious, sad and fully absorbing.” It was also an alternative selection of the Literary Guild, and I appeared on NPR’s “The Diane Rehm Show” for a full hour. The book was a joy to write and promote (even though it never even came within shouting distance of the New York Times’ bestseller list).

One of the cool things about my book-writing experience is that Barefoot permitted me to work part-time while I wrote the book over the course of about one year in 2001. And though the book didn’t sell all that well, I have received over 500 letters and emails from strangers around the country who read the book, found something to like in it, and then took the time to write me.

And just the other day, I sold the TV and movie rights to Madison Park Pictures, a small, but very creative, award-winning production firm. Check out the trailer for their movie, “LBS.” The odds of anything coming of this option that I sold are slim, at best, but it’s still cool how a one labor of love has brought me so much happiness. Maybe, just maybe, there will be a Running from the Devil movie or TV series that will bring some joy to a few others. You can’t blame a guy for dreaming, right?

Reuters today reported on yet another research study that validates what we all intuit: The happier you are, the healthier you’re likely to be.

This British study of about 3,000 adults ages 50 to 75 found those who were happier produced lower amounts of cortisol, a hormone that can contribute to obesity, increased blood pressure and an impaired immune function. One might think that happier people are just more apt to live healthier lifestyles, but that theory hasn’t held up to research. So now scientists are trying to find a tight biological link between happiness and health.

The leader of the study, Dr. Andrew Steptoe, said, “We need to help people recognize the things that make them feel good and truly satisfied with their lives, so that they spend more time doing those things.” No duh, right? But now I have a top-notch scientist and a published study to quote when I do what makes me happy: buy books, clothes and other stuff I trade up for. Thank you, Dr. Steptoe! I do feel better. And happier.

For my fellow book lovers out there, I have to tell you: the new digital book reader from amazon.com, called “The Kindle,” is a real treat. After just one week, I’m hooked! I highly recommend it to anyone who finds happiness in the written word.

Now, before going any further, I will tell you that the device isn’t a design wonder like, say, the iPhone, nor is its usability quotient really up there like, say, the iPhone’s. But despite those two drawbacks, it’s still sure to make any book (or magazine or newspaper or blog) reader very happy indeed. Here’s why:

You can visit the Kindle store on amazon.com and with one click order a book. Within minutes, it’s beamed wirelessly to your Kindle. You don’t need to download content and transfer to your Kindle. It just magically appears! And herein lies the crucial difference between the Kindle and other digital book readers that have been offered (and that haven’t taken off).

The books cost about half, or even less, than the kind made with paper. You can select from a handful of major newspapers, like The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times, to be delivered to your Kindle early every morning. The same basic approach works for magazines and some blogs, too.

Now if you’re a reader who likes pretty pictures, the Kindle isn’t for you. The images are grainy and in black and white, and most of the content comes devoid of the supporting imagery you would find in actual printed edition. But for a lot of us content junkies, that’s OK; it’s the words that matter most and if something really jumps out at us, we can go online for the color images.

Just think about it: With a Kindle, you can wake up every morning and put right in your hands your favorite newspapers, blogs and books ready to be savored along with your coffee and pastry.

In the November 26 issue of Time magazine, there’s a graphic-driven article that speaks to on-the-job satisfaction. (You can also find an interactive version of the data on the Time website.) According to this survey, the clergy are the most content, with a full 67% claiming they are “very happy” with their work. No doubt because they toil day-in and day-out for the “Big Boss,” and bring a lot of comfort to people (if they’re doing their job well). Interestingly, firefighters are among the very happiest at work, too.

I’m pleased to note that folks in our field seem pretty happy as well. Those broadly placed in the category “advertising” appear in the top 1/3rd of the happy-at-work list, with about 42% saying they, too, are “very happy.” Those that they report to are only oh-so-slightly less happy: about 41% of managers in the fields of marketing and advertising claim to be “very happy.”

This doesn’t surprise me. Having been in the ad/marketing biz for some 20 years, I would have to say that I’ve always felt, in the big picture, at least, very happy about my job. Yes, I’ve had some real difficult clients that had me thinking that being a firefighter might actually be a more comfortable job. And I’ve had some crazy-ass supervisors, one who had less self-awareness than a rock, who made work so painful at times that the thought of joining the clergy crossed my mind (until, that is, the notion of celibacy popped into my mind). Those bad job experiences aside, a life in advertising has been a true joy–most notably here at Barefoot. Why?

Well, for me, it’s because the culture is open, free and stimulating. There’s no heavy-hand demanding a certain way of thinking or approaching work, other than the requirement that you seek excellence and, along the way, respect yourself, your colleagues and your clients. While some agency cultures seem to reward jackasss and prima donnas, not Barefoot. An abundance of talent and an abundance of kindness are by no means mutually exclusive. You need both to do well at Barefoot. That’s why it’s such a happy place to work. And, at the end of the work day, a happy place in a happy industry is one great place to be.