Friday, March 16, 2007
Business
How not to do it. First, let me say that I'm not a morning person. Luckily I don't start work until 10AM, so I don't have to get up too early. However, not everyone feels that way, so that often I have to make appointments earlier - like today. We went to a home show expo last weekend and made some contacts about estimates for work on the house. One of them was to get some insulation blown into our house. They made the appointment for 8AM today.
8AM is a big deal for me. That means I have to get up at 730AM. That's about an hour and a half earlier than I usually get up. However, I set dual alarms, make sure my calendar reminds me the day before and try to go to bed earlier so I don't oversleep. This morning comes around and I do get up - and it's still dark out - only chickens should be up this early. I sit in bed feeling sorry for myself listening to the alarm clock and fighting off the urge for another round of snooze, but get up and take my shower. I'm sitting at the kitchen table by ten to eight having a cup of coffee and waiting, and at eight, I'm waiting, and it's 8:15 and still waiting. 8:30, guess what, I'm still waiting.
So I call the insulation folks, it's A-1 by the way, and ask what's going on. They say they'll contact the estimator and find out what's the deal. Finally around 8:45 he calls and says he's with another manufacturer. ?? When I ask him why he didn't call to tell me he'd be late, he sounds puzzled and says he didn't think I'd be upset. It's 45 minutes late, he's still with another client, and he didn't think I'd be upset? So we rescheduled for next week.
I figured I give myself time to cool off and then think about if I really want to do business with someone who doesn't think blowing off an appointment would bother me. Well, it's later in the day, and by this rant, you know I haven't cooled off that much, so will more than likely call them and say don't bother.
