HileThoughts

We had a small group meeting over lunch. Twenty participants and two facilitators.

Before lunch I chatted with a classmate. We both talked about  being impressed with the diversity and accomplishments of our classmates. We both marveled at having been included. Personally, I have always felt like a junior member of groups: even when I have lead those groups. Yet as I look more objectively at my position and what I have done I do fit the group and look forward to sharing my experiences, thoughts, and feelings. My lunch time neighbor echo this sentiment and suggested that it was probably widely shared among our classmates.

Introductions today are longer and more detailed. We talk about our positions and about our passions and interests. Only two from our group are natives. Many of the rest came for a "brief" time and remained because they loved the region, its opportunities, and its people. Most folks worked for groups I have heard of, all for really interesting and often times important businesses and causes.

As one fellow shared his story, working to increase minority participation in road construction projects, I realized that I had read about him, and his group, years ago in the paper.  At that time he was involved in shutting down work on a highway project to get more minority construction participation. In the more recent past he was and is) officially involved at the very beginning of the Highway 64/40 reconstruction project to foster the same goals. This impressed me greatly. First, because being proactive it seemed more likely to be effective; and second, it showed that the state’s bureaucracy could learn and respond appropriately to the concerns of its citizenry.

We received some additional instructions and orientation, one of which surprised me. The statement was made that our conversations were to be treated as confidential. That many of the individuals who would talk with us would do so with a candor that was not typical for individuals in their positions. As a psychologist, I treat confidentiality very seriously. I share confidential information with no one, not even with the woman with whom I am married. Yet this stricture seems to fly in the face of the goal of getting us to use the information learned and our experiences to foster the development of the region. I am in fact a proponent of radical openness and think that we would be much better of share information - the good, the bad, and the ugly - widely. We are, as Harry Stack Sullivan observed, "much more human than otherwise" and prone to making bad choices and errors. What makes us better is not hiding those errors but acknowledging them and forthrightly addressing them.

Nonetheless, I will abide by the request for confidentiality in these notes and in conversations; but will continue to explore exactly what confidentiality is to entail and when and where it is and is not needed.

This is our last meeting before September when we begin the program in earnest. 

Last evening I attended my first Leadership St. Louis function, a reception and introductory meeting at Ameren UE’s headquarters.

During the initial reception I could only talk to a handful of folks. But each of them did something interesting and important. One was the COO St. Louis YWCA, another ran St. Andrew’s Center that supports the elderly (in their homes and in various other locations) and helped those of us with aging relatives get them the services and care that they need, another was responsible for community efforts for a large St. Louis based health firm, and another worked with Jewish Fund for Human Needs a program to distribute grant funding to deserving agencies, and the list goes on. Also on in the class was an old friend that I had not seen in a few years, she was now running Voices for Children an agency working with hundreds of foster children.

In our introductory meeting each class member stood and introduced themselves. An ethnically and geographically diverse set of folks with impressive credentials. Lawyers working for private firms and public entities, artists, for and not for profit business executives, community organizers, university management, religious leaders, …

Most interesting, and I think very clever, as part of the introduction we were to tell folks where we live so that we could do car pooling. The idea behind this was to promote connections between class members, to give us a some time to wind up and down, as we traveled together (not to mention saving on the cost of gas). Previously I had been planning to support the region by taking Metro link from home to the meetings but this sounds like a better option. 

We also received a pep and words from the wise talk, from members of previous classes: attend meetings, sit outside of your comfort zone, you are not representing your employer but rather your community so speak frankly, and over and over this life changing experience.

Classes start in the fall and I intend to blog about those as they occur.

As a customer I am interested in the way in which I am treated by businesses. Among other criteria, I patronize businesses that provide good value and good service. What follows is a tale of my last interactions with a business that I had used for many years, National Tire and Battery (NTB). I tell this story through my email correspondence with NTB.

Last week I went to the NTB at [address removed]. I had a slow leak in a tire that I wanted to get fixed. I have been patronizing this particular NTB for a number of years. They asked for my phone number and found my records in their computer system.

The problem was a nail on the edge of the side wall which was unpatchable. I agreed to a new tire with a total cost of a little more than $200. After about an hour the mechanic came to me in the waiting room and told me that the lug bolt had broken when he was remounting the tire. He said they would fix it and that his parts supplier would be there in a ½ an hour with the new bolt. After the bolt arrived the mechanics realized, that it would take a machine shop to press the bolt into position, that their machine shop did not take business that late in the day, and that I would need to bring the car back the next day and leave it for a few hours while they did the repair. While this was obviously not really convenient I agreed to return the next morning to leave the car.

At this point the new tire and wheel were on the car with the missing lug bolt. I was ready to leave when they presented the bill. I do not pay for work that is not completed and since they had broken my car it seemed reasonable to me that I would pay after they fixed and it was ready to go. This did not seem reasonable to them. As they said there was nothing to prevent me from "simply stealing the tire." In a few short moments I had gone from an aggrieved long time customer to a thief.

I understand that things happen when working on cars and, while I was not happy that the lug was broken, thought that they dealt with that difficulty appropriately. However, I am extremely upset about being treated as a thief. It was clear from my behavior that I was not out to steal a tire. It was clear that, since I was in the database, they knew I was a previous customer. I also presume that they could have looked at those records to see how many years I had been coming to this store.

Perhaps they were following company policy, perhaps not. But I drive by other tire dealers to get to their shop. Treating me as a thief makes me want to take my business to someone who treats their customers with common sense and respect.

After that request I received the following:

I am writing in response to your email. First I want to apologize for myself and staff causing you to feel the way you did on your recent visit to our store. I can assure you that we were not trying to make you out to be a bad guy. [Name removed] was just trying to protect our company assets they our policies state. I hope that everything was resolved with your vehicle to your standards and I hope to see you in the future for service and or tires. Again I do sincerely apologize for anything that was said that made you feel unhappy, it certainly was not our intentions. Please feel free to give me a call if there is anything I can ever do for your.

So I got my answer and responded:

Thanks for the apology. You confirmed my suspicions that you were simply following policy with the statement "protect our company assets they our policies state." It is clear that your company does not realize that their assets are their customers and not their inventory. By valuing a tire over a customer you company has lost my business (I guess that my wife and I have another 40 years worth of tire purchases to make) and that of my children. I will be patronizing a company that places their customers first.

So NTB did make sure that they got paid for one tire, as opposed to the risk they would have faced trusting a long term customer for a day. However, they have lost my business, and that of my family, forever. To me, this seems like a poor investment - but hey, as far as they are concerned I am just a thief, so who cares what I think.