![]() ![]() ![]() I let him know that research into our wants, needs and expectations is long overdue. I let him know that I realized that what he was doing was important. ![]() In fact, the only word to describe that look was ‘incredulous,’ as in, ‘Appointment? What’s that?’” I stopped him. I did just that, but, not before I stopped to ask him a question: “Have you ever considered calling for an appointment rather than just showing up, banging on the door shouting, “Com-pen-eeeeee!” He just looked at me dumbfounded. I wanted to take another deep cleansing breath. I wanted to answer the question my technician who was standing behind me was waiting to ask, but didn’t because he was afraid of interrupting. I wanted to answer the three phone calls that had come in while he was standing there. I wanted to finish the work that was piling up on my desk. His questions were relevant and unusually thoughtful. He wanted a lot, especially for someone who showed up at the counter unannounced. He wanted to know who else we were buying from and what we were buying from them. He wanted to know about our customer representative and even asked about the drivers. He wanted to know if it could be improved and if it could, how. He wanted to know how his company was doing, whether or not the service was as good as it could be. He had come to the shop to harvest information, to carry out a research project of sorts. Perhaps, too courteous and polite because the guy across the counter never missed a beat. “Hi! I’m So-And-So, from U-know-where! How are you? I was just in the neighborhood and thought I’d drop by to see how you’re doing.” I took a long, deep, cleansing breath and slowly let it out while his words were still screaming in my head: “Stop by and see how you’re doing… ”Īll I wanted to do was look up from the desk and say, “Take a look around, Hot-Shot and you tell me how you think I’m doing! I’m up to my belt buckle in alligators! I’m short-handed! and you keep interrupting me! That’s how I’m doing!” But, I didn’t. The scrap pads and the papers were a dead giveaway. He was wearing a logoed shirt that bore the name of one of our primary suppliers, but I didn’t need the shirt to tell me he who he was or where he was from. When I looked up from the phone, I saw a pleasant enough looking guy patiently standing across the counter with a scrap pad in one hand and a couple of pieces of paper rolled up in the other. I felt like the Chinese acrobat on the old Ed Sullivan Show: running as fast as I could up and down an endless line of spinning plates, trying desperately to keep them all moving fast enough to prevent them from falling. Oh, and, did I mention the normal chaos of incoming calls and both scheduled and unscheduled customer visits and service requests? The county dropped by to inspect the shop for hazardous materials handling and management and to verify our site plan check to see that our hazardous material safety and data sheets were up to date and available ensure we were having our safety meetings as scheduled and that they were documented properly. My manager had to stay home and wait for the gas company to come and figure out what the cable guy did to shut the gas off on Saturday, leaving him without hot water, a drier, an oven or a stove. It was the Monday after a holiday weekend in the middle of this recession and my lead technician was called for jury duty and had to report that morning. It was a Monday when you could almost certainly hear the laughter if you just listened hard enough.
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