So I had an interesting experience in customer relations today; there was a guy for whom we guttered a very large hay shed that was a very aggressive, foul-mouthed, belligerent fellow who complained greatly about everyone involved in the process of building his shed. I was a little worried about working for someone who so easily found fault in apparently everyone that walks onto his farm, but as the cold winter waxes on, I become less picky.
Anyway, we gutter his building last week, and then I send him a bill. He calls Tuesday and wants to talk to me, right? He tells Marcine that she wont do, he HAS to talk to Dan, so she leaves me the message. I'm very busy, and it's quite easy to duck returning his phone call, even though she tells me that he sounded irate-maybe because he sounded irate. Generally, I have a policy about not being a coward when it comes to belligerent jerks on the phone, but I did have a lot of irons in the fire at the time (more on that in an upcoming blog, I hope- "Can You Smell The Bacon?") Anyway, I didn't call him back yesterday; so he is persistent; he calls again when I wasn't in the office. So, defeated, I call him back this morning and he really opened up on me right off the bat:
Him: (I'm doing a lot of editing out of very obscene language here-even if it doesn't look like it) "You don't answer phone calls worth a ****, do you?"
Me: "Very sorry, Ive been quite busy, sir"
Him: "You know, dumb-***, you could give the phone to yer secretary and and she could punch the numbers for you if you ain't smart enough to figure it out on yer own..."
Me: (pinking up considerably) "yes, she's quite clever enough for that-she's a big help"
Him: "Everyone else in the world likes to call you and complain about how crappy your work is and I'm no different so I wanted you to listen to me for a bit while I tell you how it is..."
Me: (quite red by now, I'm sure -and I can actually see my own pulse in little shock-waves around my peripheral vision, not to mention how well I can hear it in my ears) "What can I do for you today, sir?"
Him: "My wife asked me what I thought about the gutter job you did for me and I'm gonna tell you the same blankity-blank thing I told my blankity-blank wife: Since day one of this whole building process, I feel like every contractor out here has lied to me, tried to cheat me, and just done crappy work in general and I am just sick and tired of taking it!!!"
Me: (to myself: "Lord help me not say something I will instantly, soonly, or eventually regret" but out loud:) "YES?"
Him: "until you guys came out here and did your guttering... that's the first time I felt like someone did what they said they would, how they said they would, when they said they would!"
Me: "Um..."
Him: "You there?"
Me: "Um, yes... And?
Him: "that's all I wanted to say; Bye" -Click
By this time I was left holding a phone without a connection with a pulse at about 200 and all kinds of adrenaline and a red face still to boot. Its easy to laugh about now, but that old Vietnam vet/farmer knew just exactly how far to push me, apparently; cause he took me right to the edge, then yanked me back again. I think of how things might have wound up if I went ahead and spoke my mind from the start, but whatever.
Here are a few words from Solomon that we have been studying:
"...I know that it will be well for those who fear God, and fear Him openly" http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=ec%208:12&version=NASB, which is the only reason for me to hold my tongue, since for a while I figured that there was no way I was going to get paid.
and even though that may not have been it his point exactly, it held true in this one case for me.
Oh, and by the way; don't get the idea that I think i am a righteous man who never sins ... Ec 7:20: "Indeed, there is not a righteous man on earth who continually does good and who never sins".
It just happened to work out this time that I thought of the verse: Ec 7:9: "Do not be eager in your heart to be angry, For anger resides in the bosom of fools."
The point is this: in my own life, I definitely see the immediate positive aspect of being a believer, because I tried it without; and it wasn't pretty.
Note: My wife suspects that all the quiet hours on a tractor causes farmers to dream up ways to irritate gutter guys. I drove all the way to 4 miles north of Lyons to "remeasure" an estimate because his calculations were different than mine. He was right... it saved him $7.00, and cost me an extra $50.00 worth of gas. I wanna be a farmer when I grow up...
