Previously posted February 25, 2017

Today the school district held parent/teacher conferences so students had the day off.  Because I dream about being back in school occasionally (in order to take all of the days off), I decided to take the morning off as well.  Should do this more often.  Anyway, Nolan and I made our way to the mall and found ourselves at Chick-Fil-A.

I could go on and on about how I love this restaurant chain for numerous reasons, but this is going to be short and sweet.  The people make the company.  And they do a great job finding the right people, then training them to act the right way.  What inspired this thought and this post is simple, but sadly uncommon.  The young lady who helped us delivered our food and then some ketchup (for the nine year old ketchup addict).  Both times we said ‘thank you’ and the response was ‘my pleasure’.  Why is this a big deal?  Why does ‘my pleasure’ stand out?  Because it is not ‘no problem’, which seems to be the default response when dealing with most service providers.

‘No problem’ indicates that whatever the person did to serve you was above and beyond their role, but it didn’t cause them too much trouble to accommodate you.  You demanding wretch.  ‘My pleasure’, on the other hand, says something totally different.  The message is that the person is happy to be serving and making you happy is their primary goal.  Based on other experiences with Chick-Fil-A, I have to believe the organization not only trains employees to say this, they ensure each employee realizes what it means.  After all, the best way to get what you want is to ensure others have what they want (or need).

If you have a business, or if you are just the business of YOU, consider how you respond to people you have served.  The more you appreciate those you are serving, the more you will feel ‘my pleasure’ is appropriate.  And the quicker you will find that you have what you really want.