In a restaurant earlier this week, I overheard the people on the table next to me complaining about the food not being hot enough. A few minutes later mid-meal when the waiter asked if everything was okay, they said ‘Fine thanks’ and then, when he was out of earshot, they got back to their complaining.

This does not get them better service or hot food. It does not help the restaurant provide better service or make their customers happy. And the likelihood is that the customers won’t go back to the restaurant because they thought the service and food was not up to scratch. But what was the benefit in their complaining? If they had really wanted the food hotter, what stopped them asking for it? Some people ‘don’t want to cause a fuss’ but then do exactly that.

You could argue that the complete antithesis of this idea is the character of Sheldon in the hugely successful TV show ‘The Big Bang Theory’. Although I’m not condoning his inevitably extreme (and very funny) behaviour, he asks for what he wants and usually gets it.

We don’t have to be passive aggressive and we don’t have to go as far as Sheldon, however asking for what we want does not have to be a ‘fuss’. Who knows we may even get what we ask for? And that would make us happy. Wouldn’t it?