The Best of Intentions
During the past month, I was part of two different experiences that reinforced for me that sometimes, even with the best of intentions, items can go wrong during different situations in your life. I must admit, at the time of each item, I reacted in a volatile and angry manner. My frustration spilled out from inside me. And, it made me remember that, even in what I do as a provider of coaching services, I will have times when I may let my own clients down. How I respond to those situations, particularly in making amends to the aggrieved party, is highly more important, than the reaction to the process gone wrong.
The first experience happened with a charitable organization that I have helped to support for the last 18 years. A very close high school friend of mine started a fund to assist ALS victims in 2005. The fund is in memory of a high school classmate who passed from the disease in 2004. Over the years, an annual winter dinner is held to raise funds. For all proceeding dinners, I have been able to attend in person with my wife and various family members. However, for the 2022 dinner we made the choice not to attend in person due to concerns of both catching and spreading the coronavirus. The dinner is a very well attended event, and it was just uncomfortable for my wife and I to attend in person with hundreds of people in very close quarters.
One of the things that made our decision easier was that the fundraiser had a virtual livestream option as part of it. We opted for that option. We made the necessary arrangements and payment for the option and then on the day of the dinner we were to get a link to the livestream. It was never made clear when during the day to expect that link. By dinner time it was obvious something was not right. The link had never arrived. I did make some follow-up inquiries by text as to what may have happened. Perhaps all that had signed up for the livestream were impacted. However, I was informed that was not the case. I was given instructions of how to re-sign up again, if I wanted, but still no link. I must admit I was very angry at the situation. My anger had subsided a bit by the next morning, when I signed onto my computer and found the link for the dinner in my email. It arrived at 1:30 A.M. The dinner had ended at 11 P.M.
The following day, I expressed my continued displeasure. As this was a technology-based tool, (used by the dinner for the first time), wasn’t it expected there could be glitches, and perhaps a number be made available to contact a technically based person to respond to them? While there was some expression of sorrow given, it just did not sound sincere. I felt that the organizers of the dinner had my money, and I was out of luck. While ultimately, I received a replay of the dinner, (which I did see a few nights later), and ultimately was refunded my money for the livestream I did not get, it got me thinking to how my clients would feel if I let them down. While I’ve been fortunate that has not happened often to me, I impressed upon myself the need to put myself in the place of the client/customer, if I was ever in that situation as a service provider.
The other anger situation was a bit different. My wife and I were headed from New Jersey to Virginia to visit a relative. We had been there once before and had printed out detailed directions which got us there as planned. In making a second visit now, 10 months later, I was confident I did not need the detailed directions until the last 70 miles of the trip. That was a bad mistake on my part. My recollection of the first phases of the ride were accurate until about 2 hours in. At that point, because I had not looked closely at the directions, I made a mistake, which took my wife and I an hour out of our way, (and an hour back once realizing the error of my ways), before correcting course and getting back on track. While again I felt a great deal of anger, (some at me, and some at the abridged version of the directions I had followed), the aggrieved party now was not me, but the guests we were visiting.
My wife and I were expected to arrive at our destination shortly after 1 P.M. Going off course meant we were a little more than 2 hours late. However, in realizing what had happened, I communicated to my wife to connect with the family member that we were visiting the error of our ways, and to start without us. It was not right to hold up lunch for everyone else because of our mistake. Let them know how late we anticipated being. I also indicated that as angry as I was about the mishap, to tell family members not to lecture me on what I should have done when we got there. Overall, once we did get there, we were able to have our lunch late, catch up with the rest of the family and have a good time. In addition, while we were indeed late, they did not have to worry that something more tragic had happened to us.
As much as we would like it to be, life is not perfect. There will be things that will happen that will not align to our expectations. And, that will often frustrate and anger us. However, even if your actions were meant with “the best of intentions’, do not feel your obligation stops at that, but look to determine how you can most make amends, or be sensitive to the feelings of the aggrieved party impacted by the negative outcome.
