Once again I have proven to myself and others that every week you can learn something.  Last Friday, as I walked into the office at the usual 6 am I found myself pausing and looking at the Sucessories Posters that are in the entry way to the RR office.  Visit the site....
http://www.successories.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/home.home/home.cfm

There are 2 posters and the floor mat which really recapped my week.

 

One is a picture of a waterfall dumping into a lake with the saying "New Beginnings.  In life what sometimes appears to be the end is really a new beginning."

 

The other one is a picture of a ship with the saying "Risk  A ship in the harbor is safe, but that is not what ships were made for."

 

The floor mat says "If we don't take care of the customer someone else will."

 

Let me elaborate on each one of them.

 

Last week I experienced some horrible customer service.  I have learned a lot from this experience, and hope I never make the mistakes this vendor did.  Last week without any notice the cable TV in the office, and my dad's house suddenly changed.  The basic package was reduced from 50 channels to about 12 channels.  This was all done without any advance notice, and when I called, it took over 24 hours to get a return phone call.  While this was not the end of the world for the office or for my dad, it was a major tragedy for a neighbor with a 5 year old child that was not able to watch her favorite Disney cartoon.  When I finally did get a return phone call, I was told I could take this opportunity to upgrade to their digital service (double the cost), and get back the channels that I lost.  Well this was not a hard decision for me, with such poor service I decided to call Direct TV and have it installed ASAP.  Hence this goes back to the door mat....

 

Risk:

 

New Beginnings:

Tomorrow Thursday May 8 RR is entering into a new beginning.  We are starting today our FSC audit.  Last Friday I had delegated a ton of work to everyone in preparation for the audit, and had reviewed countless documents.  I came to a point about 2:00 in the afternoon that I was exhausted, so I disappeared to the little cot that is in the upstairs of the office.  The next thing I know it was 3:30 and there were logs in the yard to scale and everyone was laughing at me because I had taken a nap.  This is the first time this ever happened, and I am sure no one will let me forget it.  I am hoping that by the end of May RR will be able to offer to their customers a value added product FSC certified wood.

 

I can tell you that I firmly believe in the New Beginnings poster, because I bought it the day after I got left my suit and tie.