Never Split the Difference: Negotiating as if Your Life Depended on It

the first thing you had to do was check to see if the person
had called that day, because they were only allowed one call
a day. They knew it, too. A lot of times, they’d say, “Yeah,
I’m Eddie. I haven’t called yet today. Go ahead and check
the list. You got to talk to me.”
Since I was there primarily to learn a skill, I loved the
frequent callers. They were a problem, and I loved trying to
figure them out. I felt I had some talent at it. I felt like a
superstar.
When it came time for my performance review, they
assigned me a shift supervisor named Jim Snyder. Jim was a
hotline veteran and a sweetheart; the only problem was he
always wanted to joke around. Jim understood that
volunteer burnout was the biggest problem at a hotline, so
he dedicated his time to making work fun. I became good
friends with Jim.
For my review, Jim waited until I got a call and went into
the monitoring room where the supervisors could listen to
our calls. The call was from one of my frequent clients, a
cabbie with a fear of going outside and plenty of time to tell
me about it. This energy vampire (his name was Daryl)
launched into his shtick about how he was going to lose his
house and with it his will to live if he couldn’t work.
“Seriously, when was the last time someone tried to hurt
you on the streets?” I asked.
“Well, I mean, it’s been a long time,” Daryl said.
“Like . . . ?”
“I can’t really remember a date, Chris. Maybe a year, I