Giving our clients exactly what you promised and what they want is always our goal. But, when something goes awry, what’s the best way to handle it? My son showed me.
Last week I moved out of my perfectly good house that was completely decorated the way I liked and was at the “maintenance only” landscape stage. That is to say, I had moved almost every plant (including small trees) three times in an effort to get it “just right.” There was no more fun to be had. So it was obviously time to move!
Unfortunately there was a three week transition period before I could get in my new house, so I got a PODS storage unit. (PODs are the coolest thing on earth by the way. If you rent one, make sure you hang out and watch the handlers deliver it. Truly amazing.)
On Saturday and Sunday of that weekend my children and I rushed to empty our house into the POD. On Tuesday morning, while I was at an important conference, my son called, distraught. He was unable to find his uniform for his high school volleyball game later that night. And then he said it, “I think it’s in the POD.”
Finding something in a POD without unpacking it is like having one large drawer the size of a room. You have to scratch and claw your way through it to find what you are looking for. Now I had a dilemma. High school volleyball, or conference? Clearly I needed to stay at work and do my job. Clearly that is NOT what I did.
After 4 ½ hours of climbing around the POD looking for the dag-blasted uniform, I gave up and went to the match scheduled for 5 pm. Hot, sweaty and mad, but possessing a colorfully expanded vocabulary, I came to watch my child sit the bench as he had no uniform and I knew the coach’s policy – no uniform, no play.
And then, there he was ON THE COURT, in a new uniform. In my mind, I put him on death row, needing to earn a reprieve from the governor to enjoy one more day of 17-year-old life.
After the match, he walked straight up to me with his big blue eyes wide and said, “Mom, thank you so much for looking for my uniform. I am so sorry to have put you through that. I love you.”
Game, set, match to boy. I was immediately disarmed and back on his side. And that, my friend, is what I plan to do next time I screw up big. Roll over and show my soft, white underbelly.
love ya. mom/grandmom