Driving Miss Crazy February 25, 2014
Posted by mareserinitatis in career.Tags: Driving, nice people, professionalism
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I had a workshop in Minneapolis today.
Or…I thought I did.
I needed to attend some training, and to get there, I have to drive about four hours each way. It’s not a huge deal. The weather was relatively nice (aside from the 35 mph head/cross wind on the way back). I have done day trips like this a million times before.
Except that when I got there, I found out that the training had been moved out two weeks and I hadn’t been notified of the change.
If you’re exhausted from getting up very early and being on the road for a long time, hearing something like this is bound to make you blow up at the person delivering the bad news. I almost did. However, I got a grip pretty quickly and asked if there were any materials that would have been available at the workshop that I could start looking at. Obviously having a fit wasn’t going to solve anything, so I figured I’d try to salvage what I could.
The admin person was very nice and helped me find someone who could provide such documentation. After hearing about what had happened, this person did something even better: he found an instructor for the training who sat down with me and ran through all the stuff I needed. When he couldn’t find someone at first, I said some documentation would be helpful, so that would be enough. He responded,
You drove four hours to get here. I’m not going to shove a piece of paper in your hand and turn you away.
I was surprised at how emphatic he was that I get something out of this trip…and grateful.
He did find an instructor after a bit. I was able to ask the instructor specific questions and pretty much avoid all the pointless stuff. We actually fixed a couple problems I was having, and, better yet, I spent half the time working with the person that I would have spent in the training. (I do feel bad that I sucked this person away from other responsibilities, but he was extremely polite about it.)
The day was still a very long day, but I definitely feel like it was worth it. It’s always nice when someone behaves in a professional manner, but it’s beyond awesome when they’re willing to go out of their way to help you out…although I’m sure the driving bit had something to do with it.
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