Interpersonal Perspective

I really, really did not want to help him.  

He's a semi-regular customer (in that he's been back a few times).  He's military which usually means he needs a project done five minutes ago.   And at a lower cost than any other bidder!  However, this guy has all the time in the world.  He is full of stories.  The earlier times he was in I heard about Iraq, how he just returned, and how now he is trying to put life back in order...The first couple times I worked with him I was interested in the stories and did not mind at all helping him figure out how to frame a beat-up old guidon.  Yet I found myself hiding the third time he came in!  I had so much to do, I was already behind, and I simply could not bring myself to spend an hour or more just to hear the same stories.

Today, he came in again.  I didn't remember him at first.  Until he started talking.  And then I wished desperately that there would be another framer who could help him.  But I was alone, and he needed help.  I laughed internally when I heard he'd been at another one of our locations the day before (but they weren't as helpful or nice!).  So, I spent the next hour and a half working with him on choosing colors, discussing framing techniques, and sharing trade secrets -- since I think he actually knows more than I do but it's fun to pretend I'm so wise and knowledgeable in my trade.  As the time went on, and he very politely let me help the four other customers who came through and also answer phone calls, I learned more than I ever cared to know about his family homestead, his family history, and the giant petrified wood log they'd found on the farm.

Then yet another customer walked up, and he decided it probably was time to go.  Without actually placing a formal order or purchasing anything.  I was too busy helping the next customer to worry about it until later.  And then I began to feel a little guilty.

What is customer service? and how do you offer it without wasting your employer's payroll?  But it's occurred to me that sometimes it's just what it says -- actually serving the customer.  Maybe this guy didn't get anything this time.  Maybe he just needed some ideas.  I'm pretty sure he'll be back to have us finish what he can't do.

But I think the real story is something much more -- I think he just needed to talk.

As I remember some of the stories he'd told me before, and I begin to put pieces together, I am ashamed for not being more genuinely interested in his stories and ideas even if for the very reason he is another person.  A person who's been through a hell in Iraq that I will never be able to understand.  A man who's come home to his children that barely know him.  He's a veteran who could not afford to buy the family farmhouse when the great-aunt decided to let it go.

He has some mementos of that farm that he wants to save, to preserve for himself and for his children.  This time instead of saving a tattered flag from Baghdad, he's preserving his family history.

And I didn't want to help him because I had too much to do.  That's the problem isn't it?  We all have so much to do.  We're behind on projects.  We are so concerned with deadlines and the stress of our own lives, we forget the people in front of us have stories, too.  They have lives, deadlines, jobs to get done, family to take care of, and to-do lists to finish.  I forgot the person behind the face, and I forgot the service I'm paid to provide regardless of what exactly the customer may or may not buy.

So here's my commitment to remembering the person that's standing on the other side of the counter.  I hope we all can do a little better at recognizing the value of those around us...