3 Unrelated Lessons That Have Little To Do with Shiatsu

I'm going to start out this post by stating something highly controversial.

I love Comcast.

Well, more specifically, I love their customer service. In my 8, 9, oh, I don't remember exactly how many years since we've switched over from another unnamed phone/internet company, I haven't had one negative contact experience with them.

Aside from the high prices, as if I even have any context by which to determine that number, and a sneaky move they pulled six months ago of offering a "loyal customer discount" while at the same time adding on services we didn't ask for and raising the prices just slightly above that discount (got that taken care of just by asking)... they've been a joy to deal with.

One helpful guy, upon determining that our modem had fried, not only looked up and gave me directions to the nearest Comcast office so I could get a replacement, he called back twice (twice!) when I returned to make sure I got it up and running. After I thanked him, he shared his perspective that why shouldn't he have fun and enjoy doing his job well? What would be the point otherwise?

Indeed.

So, there are several points I'm trying to make in this post... a typical blogging no-no.

One: sincere and actually-helpful customer service is worth paying for. For me, anyway. And it usually works out nicely for everyone involved.

The second lesson was to examine the source of negative expectations.

I had a situation come up recently which warranted a call to Comcast. In spite of everything I just said above, I was hesitant to call, and expected confrontation of some sort. The only reason I can see most likely behind this was some complaining I had heard recently from other people who had dealt with them. There was no other reason to expect my call to go badly, except I let these voices get to me.

And I dread making phone calls as it is. See?

I put off dealing with them, even though my issue was time critical. And then I put it off and put it off some more. And then created a contingency plan should my call, when I finally did make it, would not go too badly.

Finally I screwed up my courage, and complained on twitter about having to call them. (See how proactive I am? My passive-aggressive self knew that if I even mentioned their name, someone would promptly respond, ready to help me. Took all of about 45 seconds. And I totally avoided 15 minutes of navigating irrelevant voice mail options...)

I explained to Comcast Twitter Guy my situation in 140 characters or less. He took my phone number, saying he'd look up my account, and then I didn't hear from him again.

Until this morning, when I got a call from Comcast saying they got my tweet, they dealt with my issue and all is now fine and dandy. What the heck was I worried about?

Which brings me to lesson three, in which I'm finding procrastination sometimes works really well for me.

Or, we can call it 'a trust in the natural flow and rhythm of the universe'. Yeah. That's it.

(What does this have to do with shiatsu? Well, not much. Except for a new tact I'll be trying out in the near future in which I not only own up to being a lazy shiatsu practitioner, but create a whole marketing angle around it.)