The difference between being right and sounding right

We all know the difference between being right and sounding right… just think back to last New Year’s Eve, or the one before, when any gathering was sure to include that one special person (it wasn’t you, was it?). In case you’ve forgotten, I’ll take you back.

Your gathering was having a pleasant time trading remarks on the topic of the soon-to-be-coming-new-millennium. In the middle of the fun, that one special person would cut through the laughter and gaiety with sober righteousness.

“You know,” the one special person would say, “The New Millennium won’t begin in the year 2000, because it won’t really arrive until 2001.” As eyes rolled upward, the one special person continued on with careful explanations of how there was no year zero, blah-blah-blah-blah-blah.

I write blah-blah-blah because by that time the group and I had stopped listening to the one special person. Oh, he was correct, in every way except the biggest one: It is always better to sound right than to actually be right.

If you sound right, the crowd is yours, the world is your oyster, and you can do as you wish, whether right or ignorant. Better to sound right and make friends, than to be right and make enemies.

Now, I put the question to you: Are you a very special person (i.e., righteous pain in the butt) in the futon and furniture industry? Let’s see!

Question Number One: Take a look at these two pictures. Which one is the futon?

Answer: As an old-timer in the futon business, you’d answer that the futon is the mattress. Which is okay (and correct), except that the rest of the world voted the other way… so do you want to be right, or sound right?

Old-time original futoneers (such as myself) hark back to the olden days, before frames, when the futon was a big bag of cotton on the floor. To us, that’s it, a futon is soft and filled with cotton. Later, when the futon frame came along, we thought of it as an important add-on… a frame to hold the futon, terrific!

Imagine our frustration when people started referring to this wood or metal thing as a “futon.” We’ve been correcting those people for fifteen years, and they still don’t get it! Each week the Sunday newspaper ads proclaim “metal futons” or “oak futons” with the notation, “mattress not included.”

So, my very special futon friends, do you want to be right, or sound right?

Dave’s solution: Say it the way I do. The futon is made up of three components: The futon frame, the futon mattress, and the futon cover. These terms work for everybody, both old-time futon people and new-fangled furniture and mattress people. I try to make it simple for the newcomers, since many of them have been selling futons for only ten or twelve years.

FL