Small bank Big Customer Service

I’m still processing the feelings of a meeting this morning.

We moved the store’s account from a huge multinational bank to a local bank (Seattle Bank) several months ago. Each of two times that we have taken our credit card terminals off site to large meetings where we have sold books the terminals have malfunctioned and caused us considerable stress and accounting problems. A couple of weeks ago the event was large and the credit card malfunctions were large too.

Two individuals from Seattle Bank worked with us closely and long and hard. We phoned one of them Saturday evening at 8:45 and he returned the call Sunday morning at 10:00 to help us work with the malfunctioning terminals. He then spent many hours the following week working out ways to capture all of the credit card transactions.

This morning the manager of our local Seattle Bank visited us at our store and he brought with him the district or regional manager (I missed that specific detail.). That manager showed intense interest in the problems that we have experienced with the credit card terminals and the technical support that took a lot of time but often were of little help.

He took notes. And more notes. He asked probing questions and wrote down our answers. At one point he borrowed a highlighter and highlighted one section of notes. Before they left our store the manager assured us that our descriptions and his notes were going up the line and would make a difference for the future. Our local bank manager then gave us each a gift certificate at a small locally owned delicatessen that is also a member of the bank as a thank you for our time today.

Whenever I can I encourage individuals to shop with local independent businesses. The reasons include the real situation that those who are making their living by direct contact with their customers know their products better and give better customer care than those who work for the big megastore. I did not expect to receive such care and concern by my bank. I have no doubt that I would not have received that kind of personal care from our previous major name bank.

I’m still somewhat overwhelmed by today’s meeting.

One of life’s joys, or is it embarrassments. And, is there a difference?

A “little old lady” phoned a few minutes ago. In her sweet and kind of shaky voice she asked, “Where are you located?”

I replied, “We are located in Seattle on Stone Way North, between the Wallingford and Fremont neighborhoods, just north of Lake Union and south of Green Lake.”

She replied, “Oh. Well, I’m in Denver Colorado.”

I assumed that she was asking one question, a local question. She was actually asking a continental question.

The laugh is on me!

I could have clarified with her first where she was located in order to give her an answer that met her needs. I just assumed too much.

Being on both sides of the wall

A young man was dieing from cancer. Near the end of his life the author writes:

“And he told me that the day before, he had been lying in bed, thinking about getting up, and suddenly out of the corner of his eye he had become aware of some sort of a barrier or a wall just behind him. As he noticed it, he realized that he had always known it was there but he had never seen it before. I encouraged him to say more, ‘Well, I know I’m here on this side of it. But at the same time, I know I’m on the other side of it too. I don’t know that that means. Do you?’ ‘…It makes me feel good….Sort of peaceful and joyful.’

Two days later he died.”  -- Copied without permission from Kitchen Table Wisdom: Stories that Heal, by Rachael Naomi Remen, Riverhead Books, 1996, 2006, paperback, page299.

This is a new thought to me. Part of us, part of me, could be on “the other side” and have always been there. What does that tell me about dying?

One description of dying is that it is something like our birth where we had lived for many months, our whole existence, in a dark, warm, liquid world and at birth we are released from that world into a world that is light, cold, and dry, but it is good to be in the new world. And the corollary is that likewise it will be good to be in the “next world.”

If we have all along had part of us on the other side of the wall then our dying here won’t put us into a new place but we will remember it when we get there from the part of us that has been there all along. It won’t be a strange new world because we will recognize it as part of where we have been.

The Resurrection shows me God’s forgiveness

I realized this a few Easters ago, but it returns to me each Easter since then.

Jesus came into our world fully human and fully God to show us how much God loves us through his forgiveness of all our refusals to put God first in our lives. It wasn’t so much his death on the cross that shows me the depth of his love and forgiveness. It is in his resurrection. How many of us, were we tried unfairly, sentenced too severely, and tortured to death if we could return to this world would rain down revenge on each person that participated in our trial, torture, and death?

Jesus’ forgiveness of us after the Resurrection shows me how much God loves and forgives us for all of our egotism, self-righteousness, and lack of true love of God and true love of our neighbors as, or more so, than our love for ourselves.

Jesus shows us yet again by his actions. This time he shows us by his actions after the resurrection.

Ship Express because it’s Easter?

It’s unusual. We have shipped more orders via Express Mail for assured delivery by Easter this week than we shipped for assured delivery the week before Christmas.
What causes this? Does Christmas receive so much hype that we don’t forget to send gifts early and Easter receives so little recognition that some of us forget to finalize purchases that we need for Easter?
We are glad to help our customers with Express Mail shipping. Still, we fret over the excess costs the purchases incur by needing to ship them by the more expensive and faster shipping of Express Mail.

The Women's Convocation preparations

The past few weeks Nancy has been diligently preparing for our book display for the Intercommunity Peace and Justice Women’s Convocation V, April 12th and 13th. Catholic women religious plan and present a fabulous program of speakers for their convocation. This is not an annual event. It happens about once every four years. It is held in one of the largest conference venues in the metro Seattle area. Two thousand women are expected to attend.
We will be displaying and selling more than 100 book titles for the 15 well-known authors and speakers on women’s issues. The logistics for us are significant.
It is a women’s event so our booth will be staffed by women while the male staff members of this ministry-which-is-the-store will handle the duties of our bricks and mortar and online store, as well as some of the heavy lifting and delivery of the cartons of books.
It is an interesting and exciting time for us, even during this Holy Week.
After the event I hope to report on what I hear from those who attend about the speakers and some of their thoughts.

One body, different parts

Nancy and I visited our son and his family in southern California this past weekend. Great visit. Wonderful family time together.
It is always enlivening to worship in a different Episcopal congregation. They live and worship with a special emphasis due to their location and the presence of many military families that my home congregation does not. The different congregations are definitely “one body in Christ,” and we are different parts of the same body. Same blood, same "DNA" so to speak, but our bodies react differently to the different environments in which we live.
We are not frozen in one identical liturgy, one liturgy that could become boring and less meaningful. To me the way that we can adapt the liturgy to fit our place in "the body" seems most natural. And certainly our God who is more than we can describe, know, or imagine, is used to our varieties and our varieties of worship.