Category: Personal Thoughts

An Ode to My Car at 100,000 Miles

Category : Personal Thoughts
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a few years after my Grandpa died, my Grandma moved to Milwaukee from Madison to be closer to our family.  As part of her move, she wanted to downsize her car.  It was about 1994 and I was about 10 and remember when she brought her new car home.  I remember going all over town in her little red car.  We’d go to the food store, the mall (to buy me baseball cards and sporting goods), movies (like Seven Years in Tibet and Wag the Dog using the senior matinee discount of course) and out to eat (Chinese was a favorite).

She loved to spend time with me and I could do no wrong and the smallest successes made me a “genius.”  We always drove around in her little red car.  It was impeccably clean and even had a little trash can on the floor in the middle of the back seat.  She used to bring it over to our house and pay me $1-5 to wash the car.  She’d watch, but get distracted when she wanted to see me shoot baskets or show off some new soccer skill.

One day when I was probably 11 or 12 we were driving down Silver Spring and her windows started to fog up.  She couldn’t figure out how to get them clear and I flipped two dials and they cleared up really quickly.  I think I heard that story about 100 times the rest of my life.  As she started to get older, she drove less, but still loved her car.  She took shorter trips or we’d meet at her apartment and one of my parents would drive.  She equated her car with her independence and loved to go to the mall or the food store.  As she moved into her mid 80s, we started to notice that the car would have random dings and scratches, so we got red paint so that I could fix it.

As she neared her 84th birthday, her driving was getting worse.  Her night vision wasn’t what it used to be and my parents decided to talk to her about potentially selling her car.  Asking someone to give up their car is incredibly difficult, especially when they love to drive.  For a year, my grandma said no.  As I got closer to turning 16 and her driving got worse, my parents tried another tactic.  I sometimes practiced learning how to drive on her car, since it was an automatic and we only had manuals.  My parents told her that she could give the car to me and that I would take her around whenever she needed a ride.  She agreed.  The 7 year old car had 21,000 miles on it.

When I passed my drivers test on my 16th birthday, my life changed.  I could go out to friends houses, drive to soccer practice, go to brewers games.  I drove to reffing instead of biking.  My friends and I drove all over in my little red car and some of my best memories happened because of that car. Whenever we drove over to visit my Grandma in her apartment, she always wanted to come down and see her “little red car.”  As she got older, our movies and Chinese lunches turned more to doctors appointments and lunches at her apartment.  She loved that I drove her car and took good care of it, even though it was no longer impeccably clean (the trash can had been replaced by my soccer stuff).  One time I took one of our other family cars to pick her up for a doctors appointment and she wanted to know what had happened.  She really loved that car.

It was the perfect college car.  It took me to spring break in Florida, countless road football games, tons of NCAA basketball tournaments, the 2006 National Championship hockey game, two trips to Tennessee for “man weekend” with my friends, three of my best friends friends weddings and tons of random road trips.  It let me work on consulting projects in other states and continue to ref soccer.  It took me to all of my ExchangeHut and Entrustet meetings in Madison and in other states.

Unfortunately, it also took me to my Grandma’s funeral.  She died in 2009, just short of her 91st birthday.  I know she would have wanted me to be in the procession driving her car, so I made sure it was there.  I’ve kept driving her “little red car” ever since.  Even though its now has a few dents and the inside isn’t impecibly clean, I love my car.  Every time I get in, I remember my Grandma and some of our adventures together.  People sometimes ask me why I don’t get a new car, but I don’t even think about it.  It runs perfectly and it’s never given me any problems.  I bet it’ll run for another 10 years.

 

Gratitude

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Yesterday, I wrote about apologizing.  Today, I want to write about saying thanks.  We’ve all had someone do something nice for us or make our lives easier.  We’ve all done something for someone else, whether it was for a simple favor, to further a business relationship or to simply just help someone out.  But are there times when you forget to say thank you?  Or give a halfhearted thanks, rather than a real one?  The answer is obviously yes.  Just like me, you’re human.

I think in the Internet age, we’re losing the art of the real thank you.  While a simple tweet is better than saying nothing, you can do so much better than 140 characters and 30 seconds.  If someone does something nice for you or was a huge help, you’ll really stand out if you send a real thank you, either by email or by phone.  I know some people advocate handwritten thank you notes, but in my opinion, an email or a phone call is more than sufficient.  Not only will saying thanks make you stand out, it’s just the right thing to do.  Just like taking responsibility when you do something wrong, sharing the praise when someone does something to help you out earns their respect.

You also never know how your small thank you will affect someone else.  It might be just what they needed to get them through the day.  It might be what sets you apart and makes someone want to work with or hang out again.  Saying thanks and meaning it just makes the world a better place.  But overusing thank yous is annoying.  Send real thank yous when people deserve them, not because you want people to like or respect you more.  It’s never too late to thank someone who did you a favor or helped you out.  Is there anyone who you haven’t thanked lately who deserves it?  If so, write them an email, pick up the phone and give them the thanks they deserve.

Apologizing

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We’ve all hurt others, sometimes intentionally, sometimes unintentionally.  We’ve all screwed up before, whether it was at work, at home or with friends.  Nobody is perfect.  It’s part of being human.  We’ve also all apologized when we’ve done something wrong.  Part of living in a civilized society is admitting you were wrong.

There are two ways to apologize.  One type of apology makes you feel better about yourself and is really just a token apology.  For instance “I’m sorry you feel that way” is a fake apology.  The other type of apology is where you take responsibility for your actions, let the person know you were in the wrong and attempt to make it right.  The latter is a true apology.  It’s “I’m sorry for insulting you, I should never have called you that.  I lost my temper and it won’t happen again” instead of “I’m sorry you took my comment that way.”

It seems to me that there are too many apologies these days that aren’t really apologies.  People apologize to feel better about themselves and refuse to take any real responsibility.  I’d like to see that change.  When you screw up, I urge you to apologize for real, to make the other person feel better and make the situation right, rather than use a lame, cop out apology to make yourself feel better.  People will respect you more if you are willing to admit when you were wrong and then take responsibility for your actions.

Although it’s best to apologize as soon as you know you’ve hurt someone else, it’s never too late to apologize or change your fake apology for a real one.  Take a look in the mirror and see if there is anyone who you owe an apology.  If there is, call or email them tomorrow and start to make things right.

The Customer is not Always Right. Sometimes He’s an Asshole.

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I went to lunch at Domino the other day right near my office in Santiago.  There is a very large, fast moving waiter who works there.  He has to run from the counter, across a busy pedestrian filled street and out onto the outdoor seating area to deliver food and clear tables.  The other day, he was moving quickly to clean off a table so another set of diners could sit and a man carelessly stood up from his table without looking, knocking a few plates out of the waiters hand.  It was clearly the diner’s fault.  The waiter’s response?  Something along the lines of “fuck your mother, you should look where you are going.”  The diner’s response?  I’m sorry.

A few weeks earlier, I was in a bar and a guy kept demanding faster service, even though the place was super busy.  After he kept complaining, the waiter came over with his boss and the boss told the guy to leave.

Both of these scenes are so completely different from what we have in the US and I love it.  In the US, in the first scenario, the waiter would have apologized profusely and the diner would have likely gotten angry at the waiter, potentially complaining to his manager.  In the bar, the manager might have apologized and given the demanding customer a free drink.

I’ve seen it countless times in restaurants, shops and coffee shops.  I’ve seen customers go off on service employees for having the audacity to make the customer wait 5 minutes instead of 3.  Or having the audacity to make a simple mistake.  And the employee can’t do anything or risk being fired.

So what explains the difference in reaction?  It comes down to the fact that in the US we’ve bought into the philosophy that the customer is always right.  In the most of the rest of the world, if you’re being an asshole, the service worker will tell you so.  I’ve seen it in the UK, Europe and now Chile.  It’s one of the worst parts of our culture and it wasn’t always that way.  So how did we get there?

Back when companies started to grow and the franchise/chain model started to take over from small, family owned businesses, companies needed ways to make sure to standardize operations.  They started to write company policies and employee handbooks.  Instead of trusting their employees to make good, smart decisions on their own, they tried to commoditize the work and wrote black and white rules.  One of them was that the customer is always right.

As this policy became the norm, many in the US started to respond to the new reality.  They could act like assholes and treat employees like shit and still be right!  They might even get rewarded with discounts and free dessert.  As employees became commodities and realized that they had to sit back and take abuse from customers, they just sort of went back into themselves and stopped really caring about their jobs.

And can you blame them?  Service jobs went from where one could think and make decisions to jobs where you had to suck up to people who treated you poorly and you couldn’t respond, no matter how irrational the customer was.  Customers responded to the new policies and now we have spoiled, bratty customers who treat service workers like dogs and service workers who are little more than commodities.  It’s sad.

It’s now bleeding over into non service workers too.  I got an email from a customer today who took it as a personal affront that we had a specific part of our site designed in a different way than he would have preferred.

Obviously, not all people in the US treat service workers poorly.  I bet its only 25-30%, but its a huge number.  When I’m in the US and see behavior like that, I want to say something, but many times don’t.  When I get back, I am going to make it a point to do it from now on.  I encourage you to do it as well.

The customer is not always right. Sometimes he’s an asshole.  And he deserves to be called on it.