Hearing myself consider docking the server’s tips for letting me go thirty minutes without fresh water disgusted my own ears. I knew I needed to filter my consumerism through the lens of “shalom”. Shalom is another word for peace, wholeness, and unity. It’s seeking to live as whole a life as possible. My attitude towards people in the service industry was broken, and in need of wholeness.
So, I decided that for Lent, I would do three things:
1: See the person behind the counter and remember one thing about them. The way they smile, their interesting tattoos, the way they part their hair. Anything that humanizes them.
2: On the phone, listen for their name, say their name back to them before jumping in to my need.
3: At the end of the call or transaction say, “Thank you” and mention one thing I loved about what they did.
For 40 days, I paid attention to the people in the service industry, letting Mother Teresa’s words, “We belong to each other”, mean more to me than a pretty phrase to hang on my kitchen wall. For the 40 days of Lent, I treated every person in customer service as if they belonged to me, and soon, they did.
Photo by Naama Ym
More thoughts on my “Customer Service Shalom” over at The Art Of Simple
Yours Because We’re His,
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