Service

One of the deep secrets of life is that all that is really worth doing is what we do for others – LEWIS CAROL

I am a big fan of good customer service. When I go into the credit union where Barb and I do our banking, we know the clerks and the clerks know us. We’ve only been customers there for a short time, and yet they know us by name. I am amazed by that, as I have always been horrible with names. I know many people, and I know lots of names, and yet I struggle in putting the two together; so I am always impressed with those who’ve developed the skills to do so with ease.

The folks in the credit union help us take care of business, and they do so in style and with a smile, and I like that.

On the other hand, our other bank has a different feel to it. The cashiers smile, but it always strikes me as a pose. I am sure they want to be friendly, but it feels like they’re following a script they got out of a seminar. The people at the bank stand behind their bullet-proof windows smiling, and we exchange inane pleasantries each can barely hear through the baffles of the Plexiglas. In the end, when you’re done, you leave feeling like you’ve just had a chat with a walking, talking ATM. They get the job done, and they do so with respiration and a pulse, but to what purpose?

That’s not to say they are feigning friendliness, but rather that it simply feels artificial and strained. It’s not bad; it just isn’t particularly warm or pleasant.

I don’t think you can teach “warm and pleasant.” I think you either are or you aren’t.

Ironically, I don’t care whether a person I am dealing with is warm and pleasant or cold and aloof. I want the people I deal with to be genuine. Maybe a “study” somewhere has said that customers desire friendly agents when they go into a bank or store (and it would be strange to think someone would prefer the cold fish over the cuddly teddy bear), but what I want is a real person.

Real people are hard to find.

Most people live behind layers of protections – facades shielding them from the slings and arrows of life. Human beings learn over time that in order to get what they want they must give or be what others expect, and so their souls are bent, twisted, shifted, and squeezed until their essence is all but unrecognizable from what God ever intended them to be.

One of the challenges in life is learning to accept one another at face value. There is no reason for you to be other than who you are. If you’re working, I do expect you to know how to do your job properly; but if you’re having a bad day, I don’t want you to fake a smile. I don’t necessarily want to be your therapist if you’re hurting or grieving when all I want to do is buy a gallon of milk or pair of socks, but I do want to be enough aware of your pain to put your present need ahead of my superficial desire for “service with a smile.”

Many people don’t care what’s happening to you in your life; perhaps that is true of most people; I don’t know. I cannot answer for the majority. I can only speak for myself and for what I like and for what I want, and what I have found is that as long as I focus on being someone (or something) other than myself, I am living a lie – and that’s just not good, right, or healthy.

The Bible says, “You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.” That is both radical and frightening, because it requires a level of transparency and honesty the world has rejected from time immemorial.

The challenge for us is to dare to peel away the Botox, Plexi, and Kevlar behind which we hide until the glory of God that dwells within is allowed to shine forth brightly, freely, and purely – even on a gloomy day. It’s a risk worth taking, and it’s our joyous service in this, our world.