Maybe It's the Time of Year
by Jack Hancocks
I have just gone through what must be the month from hell!
It seems that every communication that I had was giving me bad news. Whether it was from a supplier, a client, a friend, or a neighbour there was a negative connotation to the message: Can’t get that product for your event, the finish is rubbing off the pen, imprint is too small, we don’t do that on this product (even though our catalogue and website say we do). The message seems to be: “I know it looks like crap, but crap is what we do these days.”
In the song Woodstock by Joni Mitchell there is a verse: “Well maybe it is just the time of year, or maybe it’s the time of man. I don’t know who I am, but you know life is for learning.” In the past few weeks I have been asking myself if perhaps there is something in the air or in the water. It seems that everyone that I talk to lately has fallen and bumped their head. People who produce exceptional quality have suddenly downgraded. Is it the weather (“the time of year”) or is it the life cycle of the job or perhaps we are simply due for some pretty major screw-ups (“the time of man”)?
I find myself becoming less and less tolerant as the number of incidents compound (“I don’t know who I am”) and then suddenly I have to laugh because as Joni says: “life is for learning” and boy am I being schooled!
Those of you who know me personally would never accuse me of being the “eternal optimist” and I sure expected that this was not going to be one of my favourite moments in time but, guess what? I was wrong!
In every one of the incidents I experienced, the supplier came to the table, fixed the problem at no cost to my client or me and to the best of their ability made me look like a hero. Sure, not everyone got everything the way they had initially wanted, but these folks turned what could have been a disaster into a success.
In today’s fast-paced, look-at-me society it is easy to forget there are many people out there who, working behind the scenes, do amazing jobs on a daily basis. I was fortunate to run into a number of them during the past few weeks.
It is easy to become jaded when day after day life smacks you in the head and this piece started out to be just that — it began as a comment on the shortcomings of some of our suppliers
who in the final analysis turned out to be pretty damned great at what they do.
The Christmas season is almost here and it is traditional for us to become all warm and fuzzy inside and say nice things about people. I hope that I have not been caught up in these sentiments, because I genuinely want these people to know that they have impressed me. So “maybe it’s the time of year” but for what it is worth, thank you!
