They Come and Go

We’ve all had them; the miserable, disagreeable, hard to please person, who is, unfortunately, (for now) your primary contact – at one of the buildings you clean.

It makes things tough.

You don’t look forward to your weekly or monthly customer service calls or visits.

Your managers and cleaners may feel the same as you.

So, why are some of these contacts such a pain?

Who knows. In the end, it may not really matter.

Our job is to be positive, professional and responsive.

If after our best efforts, Mr. or Mrs. ‘Pain in the Neck’ doesn’t want to ‘get with the program’ – and, improve their attitude – there may be little we (or anyone else) can do about it.

But, here’s the THING..

The good news is …. ‘they come and go’. That’s right – very often, you can outlast them.

There were a handful of times in running our cleaning business, we had one of these ‘characters’ to deal with.

Our approach was basically – to ‘take the high road’ as much as possible.

So, for example, barring outright verbal abuse (which we would not accept or allow our people to be subjected to – period.), we tried to stay positive and professional even if our contact seemed to consistently ‘have a problem’.

Don’t get me wrong, if the contact’s problem was caused by something we did wrong, that we could correct – we took responsibility for it and fixed it.

But, often, their problem was mostly with their attitude more than anything of real substance.

The good news is – if we tried to stay positive and professional – and not stoop down to their level of behavior, one of a couple possible outcomes often occurred.

One, sometimes (I’ll grant you – rarely), but occasionally, over time, they improved. Whether it was eventually building a better relationship with them over time or simply personal or professional changes they were going through – sometimes, they improved.

Two, they left.

Yep, sometimes, they gratefully moved on to -‘greener pastures’ with either a different company, a relocation, transfer or in a couple cases – retirement.

Whatever it was, we thanked the Lord. Fortunately, over the years, if you’re like us, you’ll find -there’s not really many of these really difficult contacts.

But, for those you come across, remember this….

Sometimes, you can’t change them, you just have to outlast them.

You Can Do This, You REALLY Can!
Dan