Chi'-Lax!

Tmrw, Friday, is the ending of what turned out to be a challenging, very rough start to the new year. Don't know about you all but in the past two weeks I've been yelled at, screamed at, yelled at and screamed at some more, and then yelled at again and hung up on! Of course, this was all at the office thank goodness, and all over the phone. Had any of it been in person I think I might have started crying right then and there.

It's incredible how the weather affects our lives. Here in sunny, mild California, we take the 80 degree temps we had today (in JANUARY!) for granted, so much so in fact, we forget the rest of the country is experiencing bitterly cold ice storms that completley mess with their lives--at least I do, or did, until last week.

We ship things every day to the east coast and last week wasn't any different, until I picked up the phone. It was a rep from one of our biggest clents. He was noticeable aggitated. Said he had been driving around all day trying to locate his package and he was sure we didn't send it as promised. I assured him we had indeed sent it for 8am delivery, and then I tracked it on Fedex. I said, "Your right. It didn't get there. Says it was late arriving due to weather so the driver left without it. We did send it Priority Overnight, it just couldn't get there due to the weather. At this point it is on another truck in New Jersey but it doesn't say when it will get to your office. I could call to see if they have more details..."

Now, it was 5pm his time, he had been driving all day and still had to drive up to Philadelphia that evening (once he got the medical equipment we had sent and was needed urgently), and it must have been too much and he just lost it. "What do you mean the weather? Why can't you tell me where the package is? I've been driving around all day! I'm going to lose this customer
because of you! If you can't locate my package (he's screaming now) RIGHT NOW, I'm going to take my business elsewhere!" Then, he hung up on me. I was dumbfounded.

I just sat there a minute and tried to imagine if I could have done something differently. Nope. Even as my stomach was turning, I knew, until he returned to a rational place, there was nothing
I could say to help him.

You know, my son has a saying he uses to calm others down. He says,, "Chi--lax!" He heard it on tv and means Chill and Relax. It's the word I wanted to scream at this man, but since that would probably make me looks as unstable as he right then, I instead took a breath and reminded myself that he wasn't the only one being tested that day. Everything happens for a reason...

A week has gone by and guess who called today? Yep, my friend, the hothead. I actually answered the phone and he said, "Renee? Is this Renee?" I knew his voice instantly and I said
(with some hesitation) "Yes it is, Bob. How are you?" "Well, I'm a lot better. I'm calling to apologize actually. I've been thinking about you for a week now and..."

We had a nice talk and I appreciated his apology. Told him so too. Says he has a five month old daughter and my guess is he is conscientious and loving father. It is those that care, those that want to get it right, that I find are the most in need of my son's clever word, Chi-lax. Those kind also, are the ones that have to figure that out for themselves...