Anyhow, large organizations have managers for almost everything. Managers for human resources, purchasing, accounting, sales, marketing, information technology and the list goes on and on. However, there apparently is no Manager of Taking Care of Things on Saturday When Your Cable Goes Out During a Much Anticipated Sporting Event. Perhaps that’s because it would be difficult to get that title on a business card, so I’ll be reasonable and suggest that big organizations create a position called Manager of Promises. They promised to provide me with ongoing cable service and I promised to pay them for it. For some reason, when they do not keep their promise, I still have to keep mine.
When the cable service went out I did everything I knew how to do to fix it. Not being very cable-tech savvy, I tried tightening things, unhooking and re-hooking things, turning the power things to off – waiting 30 seconds and turning the power things back on and, of course, I even tried the old standard trick for fixing electronic devices – slapping the cable box on the side several times while simultaneously calling it names using what is sometimes referred to as “bad words.” Nothing worked, so I finally sucked it up and made the dreaded call to the customer service folks at the cable company.
After dialing the number, I initially felt like I had been somehow transported into the middle of one of those car commercials where the vehicles are all driven by rapping hamsters and they are singing, or more accurately rapping, about “Would you rather have this – or would you rather have that?” It was frustrating enough to make George Boole give up algebra and logic and roll over in his grave. During the middle of all of this, all I really wanted to do was talk to the Manager of Promises. I didn’t even want any new promises. I just wanted to talk to someone about keeping the old promises that were made. In the end, I apparently had reached the Manager of Next Wednesday. That was the new promise I received, sending someone out next Wednesday to check things out.
OK, stuff happens. I understand that it could have been sun spot activity, or maybe that aircraft-sized meteor knocked out the satellite that feeds the signal to my particular home, or the problem was due to some force or event that the cable company could not control. In the end, with no TV I had plenty of time to think about the Manager of Promises. You know, that’s not a bad idea. Do you have a Manager of Promises in your business?
Article by Chris Crouch from Memphis Daily News.
Smart Stuff 4 Work is written by Chris Crouch. Chris has spent years researching and studying both the mental and physical aspects of being productive and is the author of several books on the topic including Getting More Done
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