from Vince McHugh
How to tell you work for a good company
Never let them see you sweat!
April 21, 2012
I had one of the more difficult installs of my career this last week. I went out of state to finish up a large install at one of my customer’s remote offices. The initial install at the main office went well. To say it didn’t go as planned at the remote office is an understatement. In the end I got it working. I really earned my pay this week, but it also reinforced a couple of life lessons that I learned.
Lesson 1: Never let them see you sweat!
When I was a young man I use to manage “World’s Best Car Stereo” shop in Alameda, Ca. I worked there about 4 – 5 years. We installed, but did not sell car stereos (We also sold and installed car alarms). We used to take a 4 or 5 inch hole saw and cut a hole for speakers on some pretty high end cars. One day I did 5 BMWs by myself. Best practices would be to open the door panel, roll the window up and down and check for clearance for the speaker BEFORE you cut a four or five inch hole in the car door. I once did a truck door that I couldn’t do that on because it was sealed. So I did my best guest-a-mit and cut a hole right into the center of a metal support bar. I was very casual about it, and went and got a small hand sledge hammer, and a pair of speaker spacer. I beat the metal support back just enough to allow the magnet of the speaker set in with the help of the speaker spacers which limits how deep the speaker has to sit in the door. I then proceeded to the the exact same thing to the other door exuding the confidence that came with making the first car door speaker fit. The second one was a lot more fun because I knew what the outcome would be.
I learned early on that my customers reactions to a less than ideal situation or outcome had a lot less to do with what they saw, and a lot more to do with how I reacted to the situation. If I didn’t panic, they didn’t panic. So never let them see you sweat!
Lesson 2: Show your personal commitment to make it work!
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