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​‘The Swedish Fish Theory’ Brings a Personal Touch to an Impersonal World

Sometimes, a little gesture goes a long way

Over the course of several weeks, I explored what's known as "The Swedish Fish Theory"–the idea that, in an increasingly impersonal world, a personal gesture goes a long way. In part one of this series, I went to meet the man that put the idea into the world.

The self-proclaimed "King of the Swedish Fish," also known by his online moniker KnyteTech, Josh McGuire lives just off the Dallas airport, in a sprawling, thirsty landscape of highways, hay bales, and Blue Bonnets that could be considered quintessentially Texas.

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I came here to investigate a story posted to Reddit last year, about something called the "Swedish Fish Theory": When sending off a piece of broken computer hardware, if you throw some candy in the box it will arrive faster. The story, which had been posted to a few other IT forums as well, got a lot of play online. To date, there are hundreds of comments from all throughout the IT world on the thread that brought the idea into the public consciousness.

Though some simply saw it as a nifty trick to get something for almost nothing, McGuire framed his theory as a new, ideal etiquette for how we ought to behave in a world of increasing anonymous interactions. Be nice to someone and they'll likely reciprocate—it's a pretty simple idea, and old. I found it endearing that someone would actually name and propagate it, trying to bring an old custom into the present. I wanted to meet the guy who went through all that trouble. So I traveled to Irving, to meet the King himself.

Part of the appeal of the original Swedish Fish Theory post, as I read it, was the tenderhearted, fiercely positive worldview of its author. It was the least cynical thing I've read in some time. I was pleased to find that Josh very much seemed like that kind of person.

Back in 2008, when he was studying aerospace engineering at University of Texas-Arlington, Josh got his first job as a bench tech with a local Geek Squad.

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"I was the guy behind the wall who customers almost never dealt with," he said. "Most of the time I was sitting in a little rolling chair with twenty feet worth of computers in front of me on three different shelves. Day to day, it's not very gratifying. You deal with a lot more angry people than you do with happy people, because, by definition, you're only dealing with them when something has gone very wrong."

One day, a customer came in with a destroyed hard drive from which he desperately needed the data. Since data salvaging is a tricky job requiring expertise and special equipment, Josh and co. sent the drive off to the Data Recovery Department at Geek Squad City, a real place in Louisville, KY.

The recovery was successful. Even though the job ended up costing $4,000, the customer was ecstatic. He asked Josh to find the technician who actually did the work, and ask what kind of candy that person liked, so he could send a sweet token of appreciation. At this point, the technician—or "agent," in the informal Geek Squad nomenclature—was only identified by initials on the work order. The company is, of course, a massive operation, with branches all over the country. Finding that specific agent wasn't easy.

Josh and co. posted on an internal company forum, inquiring about Agent XYZ. All kinds of other technicians start chiming in, "I like candy! I like candy!" Finally, they locate the guy, who informs them that he likes Swedish Fish candy. Josh relays that info to the customer, along with an address, and in a week the agent posts on the forum that he had just received an enormous box of Swedish Fish. Everyone got a laugh out of it.

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From then on, it became a running joke within that particular store: Whenever you sent something for data recovery, throw in a little candy. "Normally it was three to four weeks turnaround time, but whenever we put the candy in the box with it, they'd come back in half of that time," Josh told me. But when he left Geek Squad to go out on his own, he continued to test the theory–and it seemed to work.

Over the next year, Josh tried it another seven or eight times—to different manufacturers; with or without warranty. More often than not, he got the stuff back well under the quoted turnaround time—a few times with free upgrades, even. The old Geek Squad joke worked, even with strangers.

"I'm one of those guys where I test everything. I'm was curious about what makes it work," says Josh. "So I had one that I mailed off with no candy. Just a friendly note. And I still got it back way faster than I should have."

"So the note was enough?" I asked.

"The note is enough. It's not about the candy. It's about the note. It's about actually being gracious for the help that you're receiving. Everything else is a bonus. You're being one good customer amongst a nameless, faceless sea of people." It may be about the gesture, but the candy itself certainly doesn't hurt. In part two, I meet with others that have tested the theory and members of the academic community to get a better understanding of the theory's efficacy, and it's greater social and psychological impact.