Customer Service

This entry was inspired by Julie's blog post today. :-)

I recently had an experience that calls to mind this term and what it means, or is supposed to mean. We've all had bad experiences with this and some folks have even come to expect it, sadly. So I was impressed yesterday when I experienced some real customer service. I recently bought a dress for an upcoming occasion and it didn't fit. I needed to return it, but there was no slip inside with any directions or address. Went to the website, sent an email, and got a return label, but still needed to ask a question. I called the number listed, but got a recording. With a sigh, I hung up and wondered how to solve this problem and get a timely refund. Within 5 minutes of my hanging up, I received a call from the company, from a REAL LIVE PERSON! She identified herself as someone from the company and said, "I see you called us. Is there anything I can do to help?" Right away I felt better. I knew this problem would be solved in a friendly, timely manner. THIS is the way it should always be, in my opinion.

Time Flies, or, The Big 5-0

As I came up with this title, I found it quite fitting since it's been much too long since I've written here. Don't know if it's the recent double-digit-changing age or just life in general. But I've been feeling sentimental.

Got together with some long time friends recently and remembered that when I was working with them, I was the youngest. They were my advisors, confidantes, cohorts and helped keep me together at times. Of course, I'm still the youngest of most of them, but now I realize I've become that person at work and it's oddly unsettling. It's as if I'm at the head of the trail looking back, wondering how I got here.

How DID I get here?? I'm not that person, I'm still the young one, I think to myself. And yet, here I am. It's part of what makes me see how quickly time goes.

But then, I feel as if there is still so much ahead of me, new and exciting and yet to be discovered. Sounds cliche' but it's how I feel. Maybe that's the perspective I'm able to have at my age.

Old

Old. It's a word that those of us in my peer group wouldn't want used to describe us. Yet, it's true that our bodies are aging, getting, well... oldER, which I believe is not the same. To me old is a state of mind, it's a narrow way of looking at the world. It's being "stuck" in our way of doing things. Now, I'm not really sure how such a harmless 3 letter word got such a bad rap, but there it is.

I've been trying to figure out how to deal with "old" people, especially those who can't see how old they are. It would be easy to just ignore them, but I feel duty bound somehow to point this out to them, to show them some other way, some different way of looking at things, show them the excitement of stepping outside the box, as it were. At least that's the way I see it.

I don't consider myself old in that way. Sure I have a certain mindset about things, but I'd like to think I can see the other perspective and try living there for a bit. Not every time, not every situation, but often. Certainly often enough that I hope I would never be described using that 3 letter word!

Three cheers to never being "old"!