Days like these
When I have a rough start to a day, I can usually shake it off and turn things around. For some reason, my usual methods aren’t working on this particular rough day.
For starters, I woke up late – normally, no big deal, I can get over it. But after sitting in traffic that added an hour to my commute, I arrive at the office feeling somewhat grumpy. Then, the kicker, I receive a call from an upset customer left behind by my now former boss. I manage to swallow my pride and dignity and calm her down.
A side note, since we all take the role of customer some time or another – please keep in mind that personal attacks don’t really get you anywhere in the service world. And it certainly won’t get you better service.
As soon as I’m off the phone, I turn and try to explain the situation to my operations manager (now my acting boss, kind of). Since she listens in on all my calls anyway, I figure I better explain the other side of the conversation that she didn’t hear. Then I get to listen to another angry rant – since my boss didn’t like the situation either.
Next, one of my installers walks over my desk. It didn’t take long for him to answer the question in my head of why he was at my desk instead of at the customer’s house finishing a job I had scheduled for him to be at an hour ago. He hands me the directions to the job site and says he couldn’t find it. I grabbed my keys and told him to follow me, I’d take him there. Hence, another hour out of an already shortened day.
But it was nice to have that time in the car to beg for God’s mercy. I needed it bad. I hate having a bad attitude. What’s worse is knowing you have one and feeling helpless to change it. I suppose that’s why I pleaded with God to change my attitude as I sat in the Starbucks drive-thru and asked in my cheeriest voice for a tall chai.
It helped a little, I suppose.
On the bright side, one thing that made me laugh so hard I was crying was this clip: An Engineer’s Guide to Cats. Check it out!
