Apologasms & Thankgivings

  “In today’s business, anyone can beat you on price, many can imitate your product or service, but nobody can take away the relationships you have with your guests.” – Ken Blanchard I

Crash Clarity: Taking the Fall 

So I’m on the way home from a swim at the University last weekend, it’s raining, I’m about 5 minutes away and a vehicle decides to turn left from a stop sign in front of me. In the span of a few seconds, I explore my options: turn right and possibly get hit on the driver’s side (I’m alone btw), slam on the brakes and probably lose control thereby possible getting the same result, or try to turn left into a parking lot which just happens to belong to my mechanic. I choose option #3, we crash.

My first thought is are they OK? So I ask, I’m thankful they’re fine, but their van looks terrible. Mine didn’t look too bad but it would definitely need some work to be drivable. The question was how much? There was a 50/50 chance it would be a write-off. If it was, since the car was a 95 Grand Am, I wasn’t gonna get much compensation.

And that was just the beginning to a week with more than its share of twists and turns.

Crusade for Justice

Two days later I’m in the line-up for the election. At my post there are two booths, on one you’ll get through almost immediately, in mine you stand outside in the rain for a half an hour next to people that don’t seem interested in chatting much. I get in, I vote, I forget about it. Chances are it’ll be pretty similar results to the previous election.

Now recently I was appointed as administrator (temporarily) for a website that announces local events and things in my corner of the world, I open up the page the day after the election and notice that someone posted about the election without my knowledge. I didn’t think that what they posted was legal, due to the stipulations of the last federal election so I sent them an email. See, we in Canada weren’t allowed posting certain things until the final results were announced for all ridings in the last federal vote. So I got to thinking about justice and the rights of constituents as far as what was appropriate for the internet. I ended up sending a letter of apology though since I was pretty abrasive.

It all was getting too much for me, so I decided to check out Helium.com. It was recommended by a friend at the Writer’s Guild (check out a post I did for them) as a website where you were given a topic and you could possibly earn money for charity if your post gets published. The topic I chose was “Components needed for effective communication in a family”. Something I don’t always put into practice as much as I should but definitely worth exploring for me. I enjoyed writing it although I’m not sure if their readers will particularly dig my style. Oh well, I hope they’ll accept my apology.

Situations on Rotation

Lately I’ve been questioning my performance at one of my jobs and wondered Am I good enough? Can I fulfill all of my obligations? With all of these other situations rotating around in my head the week got more and more stressful. Friday night I was starting to get paranoid about life with all of my woes, the weather getting colder than I’m ready for, and fear about my possible impending financial doom. All alone at work in the dead of night approaching the witching hour I started getting the heebie-jeebies! I made it through of course and I’m thankful.

The Day Before Thanksgiving

Saturday morning, I decided to face my fears. I came to terms with the settlement I’d be provided with by the insurance company & worked out a deal to buy another car, I cleaned out ol’ “Granny” (my old burgundy 95 Grand Am that would’ve cost over $4,000 to fix up… what?) and whispered an apology for it’s needless upcoming trip to the junkyard, I talked about my concerns at work with my manager, I went to the farmer’s market and had a great chat with a friend and bought some excellent croissants, the sun was shining like it was August, and I got some free furniture. I was about to lay down for a long awaited nap and a friend from work who wasn’t getting along with me too well lately called. She apologized, as did I.

Idea For Apologasms

Lately I’ve been studying a lot about how to display better spirit in guest services and how to be a more effective employee. I’ve also been reading about Taoism and kind of thought up an idea for a character for a web-series while I washed dishes last night. He’d be an old dude with cauliflower hair, using funny and sometimes unexpected hand signs, with clothes all ol fashioned and crooked, giving seminars on how to be a better apologist, & a voice that’s a cross between Jim Rohn and that beaver gopher on Winnie the Pooh. He’d occasionally getting names wrong and a bunch of other inappropriate stuff for a sincere apology. The 1st half of an episode would be an intro to the audience telling stories of the famous people he’s sent apologies to (ex. The Queen, I apologize for not being at Wilma & Kate’s wedding) and video clips of people making apologies. The 2nd half uses suggestive anagrams like you might see on a PowerPoint presentation about how to properly execute an apology (ex. The C.R.U.N.K. technique, C=Compassion, R= Repentant, U=understanding, etc) & then Questions and demonstrations.
Just another crazy idea after another crazy week. Thanks for reading!

Q: Anything you’re Thankful for today (in Canada) or next month (in the US)?

Although I believe it’s never too late to apologize here’s an ol’ favorite song of mine by One Republic about belated apologies. Great work by Timbaland as conductor on this track I might add.