I was a little startled by a knock at the door, hadn’t been expecting anyone that I could recall

when I answered, it had started to rain, he offered his hand and I said,” please come in ”

he said,” I am sorry to arrive with little notice my friend, but there has been a few issues with scheduling and I almost missed the train, so I will briefly tell you why I am here, what the day will look like, and why you should care………………I am here to help you but you need to understand, whatever you ask for, you need to be able to give……………………..so as we proceed if anyone asks, I’m from the home office and we are evaluating some things and we want to make sure we are doing everything, to facilitate the best possible service we are able to give”

I poured him a cup of coffee and gathered my things and we waited for him to finish and off we went………..the train roared into the city and our first call was a printing shop, as we are in the business printing supplies, and the director of the shop ushered us in and said,” I am sorry but I have a few complaints……………….the orders have been wrong and often they are late, we have been with you guys for a long time, but if things don’t change we will be moving along”………………………………..” I understand as I nodded my head, meanwhile I was thinking about what he had said, and in a flash a thought came into mind, he was forever changing his list ………………….a tap on my shoe reminded me of my friend and I introduced my companion as part of the regional team…………………I started to lose my cool and then i remembered what my companion had said, ” whatever you ask for you must be able to give,………………………….so I changed my direction and corralled my mind and offered this suggestion as a remedy to his pain.

”when you are ready to order please email the list directly to me so I can take charge of it and get you exactly what you need……….and before the order is shipped I will give you a call and we will go over it and make sure it’s what you need”………..he said I would like that and it probably will end these wrong orders and get us  back on the right track”……………………..we shook hands and headed for the door and he said as we left, I will send you an order later on………………….

as we departed, my friend put his hand on my shoulder and softly said, ” I like how you handled that but just to let you know, that isn’t where initially you were going to go, so if you can remember that often our first instinct is to shoot the messenger and let the ship sink”……………….

the rest of the day went about the same way, someone refusing to correctly place the blame, but as we went through the day more and more I could see, I didn’t have to take it personally

and as we left our last call of the day, the gentleman from corporate laughed as he said, ”being right isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, there are many people tonight as we speak, who are so caught up in being right they are looking for something to eat………..it was a good day keep growing”

I checked with the Home office and no one had ever heard of the name I mentioned, I’ll leave it at that……………………………