Let me be clear that I love the signs that keep popping up reminding folks that a businesses is short staffed, overworked, and could use a little extra kindness or patience.

When someone who makes $100,000+/yr is buying something from someone making $10/hr, this kind of sign shouldn’t even be necessary, but I appreciate the effort to insulate front-line staff from interactions they don’t deserve.

Those signs are little moments, and do you remember my favorite saying about moments?

Stories give moments meaning.

What might that look like? How would you craft a narrative that leads up to and reinforces and builds up a request for kindness?

Look no further than Purgatory.

This story lets the viewer see these employees through the eyes of the employee. Purgatory could have just put a bulleted list of reasons why these folks deserve some patience right on their “be kind” sign:

• It’s a really dangerous job
• We’re up here really early every day
• The work is super difficult

But hearing it in narrative form from a well-spoken employee – with a buttery voice, I might add, put that man behind a mic more often! – makes a huge difference.

Awesome stuff, Purg.

About Gregg & SlopeFillers
I've had more first-time visitors lately, so adding a quick "about" section. I started SlopeFillers in 2010 with the simple goal of sharing great resort marketing strategies. Today I run marketing for resort ecommerce and CRM provider Inntopia, my home mountain is the lovely Nordic Valley, and my favorite marketing campaign remains the Ski Utah TV show that sold me on skiing as a kid in the 90s.