Great Moments in Customer Service

The rain was coming down hard and sideways, an event very unusual for Southern California. After a sticky freeway ride, my 18-minute drive to work took 30 minutes; I pulled into the driveway at my office two minutes late and saw my client huddled in her car.

"Sorry I’m late. What’s with this rain? Where’s my California? And why do people insist on tailgating in the fast lane - with no lights on - in hard rain?"

We were standing on the doorstep with the rain swirling around the brick steps. I put my keys to work. First the deadbolt, then the regular lock. I grasped the handle and felt solid alder wood. No give at all. I was standing with my bag of laundry, phone and my Louis Vuitton bag (a paper bag from the LV store at the mall, Recession chic, which I use as a briefcase.)

“Could you hold my bag? It’s too wet to put down.”

I tried both keys again, and then gave the door a shove. Nothing.

“Could you hold my laundry?”

I gave it another shove, this with a good foot and shoulder into it like an episode of Law & Order. Nothing.

“This is a first for me!” I said cheerfully.

I gave up on the door and asked the client to return to her car while I called the landlord. I shoved my stuff back into my car and sprinted to the next office.

Shivering in the cold, I thought about all my good intentions when I left early from the house. My landlord doesn’t have a key to my office. We went into the adjacent office of the vacationing acupuncturist, and I made my way into the back, through the bathroom we share and to the inside of my office. The deadbolt was stuck on the last bit of the jam. I remedied that and with enough force to pull a Buick uphill, finally swung the door open

After my very understanding client had her massage, I realized I had left the hall light on the acupuncturist’s office. I was going to have to call the landlord again.

It is, at times like these, when I think of my list of “Great Moments in Customer Service”. I think we massage therapists all have them. The double-booked. The forgotten appointment. The wedding party that had booked every room in my spa just before the computer went down and all the appointments disappeared into computer ether, along with the call-back number.

The day I was in the midst of a soothing, relaxing massage and I bumped into the towel caddy table, causing the lamp to fall, loudly, breaking the glass shade and then the bulb popping like a gun.

Or the day I tried a wheat grass shooters at the juice bar just before a 2-hour massage appointment. Shooters indeed. I have never run so fast with my knees stuck together.

Thank heaven people are kind, understanding and in search of relief enough to put up with an ordinary human like me.

As Homer Simpson would say: “D’oh!”