With her get back stare
-- Jet

Yesterday I went and got my Jeep washed. I had finally reached the 10th free mark and holy crap did it ever need a serious bath. You know I’m not particularly fond of being in small quarters with people I don’t know but the car wash waiting area is nice and spacious enough so it doesn’t really bother me. I settled in a chair underneath a TV with Chris Matthews or someone equally grating shouting about the California fire over my head and tried to tune everything out. Everyone sat in silence, there was no conversation. Across from me was a couple in their mid 50s or so seated on the oversized couch. Next to them was a teenage girl. Next to me in another chair was a man in his 40s that would alternate between staring at a point on the wall without blinking and vigorously reading a magazine. All was well.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw another man sit diagonally across from me and pulled his ankle up on his knee. His cell phone rang – loudly. I glanced out the window, thinking nothing of it. Then it rang again, even louder, and this time it was a different ring. The man on the couch shuffled in his seat and let out a sigh. I glanced at the cell phone guy. He pushed a button on his phone and it rang again – full volume, ear bursting, stupid ass tone. I raised my eyebrows – I KNOW he ISN'T! Oh yes friends, he was. A grown ass man, in a public place, was selecting a ring tone, right out here in front of everybody and for that matter, had the phone volume up as loud as it would go. Surely it was over after listening to 3. Oh no friends, he KEPT GOING! I could feel the blood rushing to my brain. Everyone began shifting around, annoyed at the lack of just general good manners by this dude. To make matters even worse, I noticed he had a huge gap between pants leg and socks. This is a huge pet peeve of mine. This is actually important enough that our professor pointed it out to us in PR class. Before sending a man on television, always make sure his socks and pants legs meet, regardless of if he crosses his legs like ankle to knee or if he crosses them like a chick.

So needless to say I’m totally pissed and this guy has no idea he’s even irritating anyone with the unbelievably loud barrage of cell phone songs. Finally, after the 5th or 6th one, he glances up and his gaze falls on me. I narrowed my eyes and stared right back. He looked a bit unnerved, but he stopped with the ring tones. That’s right.

Not a moment later he got an actual phone call, and the second a word popped out of his mouth a light bulb went off. Yep, that’s right – a Yankee...


Have a good weekend y’all!
dabbs

I’ve been changing channels
I don’t see them on the TV shows
Where’d all the good people go
We got heaps and heaps of what we sow
-- Jack Johnson

What ever happened to service with a smile? I’ve had two great customer service experiences in the past week and that is saying a lot in the times we are living in. The first was at Chick-Fil-A and mad props to Truett Cathy, because there just isn’t a better example of service with a smile than in his establishments. I don’t care if you hate Chick-Fil-A – they are trained to be friendly and that just makes for a good experience. How about a blog shout out to the nice lady that handed my bag and when I said, “Thank you” she sincerely countered with “Yes ma’am, it was my pleasure! Have a nice day!” LOVED it – put me in a great mood straight off the bat on an otherwise dreary Tuesday morning.

Directly across the street and a mere matter of hours later, I visited the Express Oil. Cutest. Oil-Changer. Ever. Just a straight up nice kid – offered me a free car wash, walked over to the car wash while I drove over there, punched the buttons in for me and promised to meet me after the car wash was through to fix the beeping from my instrument panel (that annoying thing reminded me for about 2 weeks that I needed to change my oil every time I cranked the car). He was all, “Yes ma’am, I was glad to help you and would you like me to write down the price for that transmission flush you need?” And I was all thinking, how nice is this kid? I’m totally bringing the Jeep here for the flush action. (Hello nice Mr. Oil Changer Kid, Goodbye $100 bucks. Sigh). As promised, Danny met me outside the wash and tried to no avail to stop the assault of beeps, he went and asked his manager and came back, still no luck. He apologized profusely and aksed if i wanted him to consult my owner’s manual. “No, that’s totally cool, I can do that. Thanks for all of your help.” And with that I left – in a better mood than when I drove there and minus $23. See, good customer service. How easy is that?

Now, if we could all just base our random interactions with random people as our own customer service to the world, I think the world would be a better place. I’ve long been of this school of thought. When you get on the elevator with someone you don’t know, smile and speak. How hard is it? You never know, you may brighten someone’s day. Lord knows wherever they are headed, they’re bound to run into a bunch of crap, so at least you did your part, right? (Speaking of elevators, if you are relatively new to dabbsville, please head over to the search button and enter “elevator” you need to catch up).

And because I’m feeling so generous (well, guilty) I’m going to post two entries today! Please accept this small token as an apology for the lack of updates.