How to be the Hero when the System's Broken (and other lessons)

It's Friday morning here in our part of the world. Our routine for Friday mornings was moving along nicely - the wife getting ready for work, the senior getting ready for highschool. Me at work on my laptop. The dogs asleep at my feet. It's all good for the moment.

Then the senior leaves for school. Five minutes later I see him walking back up to the house through our front yard. "Uh-Oh, that's not good," I think. Seems he's gotten about three houses down the road and his car quit shifting. Bummer.

So then we go into scramble mode.

Call the insurance company 1-800-pick-me-up number (not a real number, don't call it, please). My wife gets the lady on the phone who is having some kind of PMS bad morning. So the lady starts yappin at my wife over this deal, which means the phone gets passed to me.

TIME OUT - I am choleric and a salesperson to boot. This lady doesn't stand a chance with me.

Okay, so after listening to her for long enough to find out that she is more interested in arguing than problem solving, I tell her to take a hike and hang up. What this lady doesn't know is that my insurance agent is my neighbor. And he's a great guy. He's a problem solver. And further, he's a Rainer!

So I call up John, tell him what happened and he tells me he will take care of it. Cool! We hang up and less than 5 minutes later he calls me back. The tow truck is on the way and I'll be getting a call pretty quickly. Awesome! Way to go John!

So the call comes from the tow truck guy. I tell him how to find the broken down Jeep. Then he tells me he is picking up my Acura, not a Jeep. Oops. That isn't right! So I call John back. He apologizes, say's he'll find out what happened and handle it. We hang up. He calls whoever he calls. Then he calls me back. It was a simple error. It has been fixed. Excellent!

Hold tight. I gotta run down the road to help the wrecker guy.....................................

Okay, I'm back. Here's the pics.

This is how far he got down the road. I live up just up the road, about three houses.

Here we are getting loaded up...

Getting ready to ride up onto the bed!

Okay, so here's a couple of pointers...

1)Things will go wrong. It happens. We are all human and we make mistakes. When you work in a company, the probability of mistakes goes way up because there are more people involved in the system who are less connected to the real person with the issue. In short, the further away someone is from the person who has the need or problem, the less likely they are to feel the urgency of the situation. For the lady who answers the call in New Mexico (when I am in Oklahoma), it's just another part of her day. For me, it is an issue that needs to be handled right now!

2)When things go wrong, you have the opportunity to be the hero! John did this for me. I know John, so when he said he was going to make the phone call, I knew the problem would be taken care of. And it was. And when there was a second blip, he didn't get frustrated at me for calling him back. Instead, he handled that too in a very professional manner. Am I dedicated to John even though the company messed this up. Absolutely! He's got my business.

3)Never miss a chance to help someone else grow their business! The wrecker guy got to the car super fast and I told him how cool that was. He said he had just started the company in the area so he was able to provide quick service (translation...I don't have so much business yet, so I can move quickly). Ah-ha! So I told him to come visit my networking group. He could pass out his cards and introduce his business to other professionals. And in that way, he will begin establishing contacts and building his small business. And guess what happened? We got into a conversation about buying houses and that led to a contact he's going to send my way. HOW COOL IS THAT????

Lesson to remember: When you help others, it comes back to you.

Well, I don't know about you, but I'm worn out. What a way to start a Friday. But when you're a parent and a small business owner, this is how it goes some days.

And I wouldn't trade it for anything!