Posts Tagged ‘good service’
Just Ask
My curiosity was genuine. A year ago, we had the asphalt company that put in our driveway come back to patch cracks and reseal the entire surface because it seemed the original protection hadn’t lasted as long as expected. Over the winter, those same cracks just opened right back up.
I was a little disappointed, but surmised the natural freeze/thaw conditions were the culprit, not necessarily a bad job on the sealing/patching quality. It seemed to me that hiring them to come back and give it another try would be throwing good money after bad.
But after weeks of walking over these disconcerting cracks and moping about them each time, I finally decided to call the owner to ask if he would come look for himself and to offer his professional opinion about the crack repair not lasting. Mostly, I wanted him to know exactly how the driveway they installed looked after only four years.
You never know how this kind of call will go, but to my surprise, my timing was perfect. They were finishing a driveway in the area, and he would be able to come look at it that very afternoon. Doubling my surprise, two company trucks pulled in together. He brought two of the guys who do the work so they could all see it and put their heads together to come up with a solution.
Oh, I forgot to mention, before they even arrived, he texted me that he intended to make any improvements necessary at no additional cost. This all happened on Friday. The crew is coming today to repair any cracks that need attention.
All I needed to do was make the call and ask the first question.
“Could you come out and look at it?”
I give some credit for the fortunate results of my query to the fact that I wasn’t trying to get something for nothing. A form of altruistic reverse psychology, maybe? Something like that.
Meanwhile, here’s a shot that reveals how dry it’s getting around here:
Like the static formed by rubbing a balloon on hair, Mia’s swishing tail was building up a static charge.
If she would just ask, we could wet it down for her. Maybe that is why the horses seem so happy when Paddock Lake has water in it.
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Feeling Happy
Woke up this morning and looked out at the sun coming up over Round Lake in Hayward, Wisconsin and realized we weren’t at home. Then, I remembered the wonderful dinner we had at the Lake Magnor Lighthouse restaurant attached to the convenience store gas station on Hwy 63 in Clayton on the way up.
Servers were fully present and projecting great energy, which enlivened the whole place. We seated ourselves in a booth with a view across the road to Lake Magnor and soaked up the atmosphere. It wasn’t our second honeymoon, but it was feeling a lot like the first one.
This was the first weekend we had coverage to be away since the occasion of our 37th anniversary, so the two of us have dashed up to a solo weekend at the lake. Easily reminiscent of our visit this month back in 1981.
When dinner was delivered, the “bottomless” real fresh-cut potato fries on Cyndie’s plate won me over instantly. This was after I had already visited the salad bar and discovered a spring mix of greens in place of the usual iceberg lettuce, plus every topping I ever wanted. More characteristic of a trendy urban restaurant than this perfectly kitschy rural diner.
Good food, great service, and two oldsters reliving their lifetime of being in love provided all the ingredients necessary for a memorable moment that lasts.
The fact that we’d cluelessly driven past the place so many times before on our travels to the lake enhanced our delight over the serendipity of finally discovering it this time.
I won’t deny that my mindset was already primed with happiness over an achievement earlier in the day that I have been waiting far too long to resolve. We got our home back-up generator serviced!
It has been over five years since installation and I have neglected it ever since, despite repeated mailings urging us to purchase an extended warranty and service contract. There was a constant mental conflict over thinking I was being negligent and they were being overly persistent.
Eventually, I contacted the installer to inquire about a preventive maintenance inspection. They no longer provide support to this product. I tried another place they referred me to, but it only offered long term warranty programs like the one the manufacturer keeps mailing to us.
I mulled over trying to figure things out on my own and changing the oil myself. That never seemed to lead to any action.
Finally, I found a new company that could service it without a long contract and would come from Minnesota to do it. However, they charged me immediately on the day I scheduled the service, and then postponed the appointment twice, both times without warning me in advance.
I was thrilled yesterday afternoon when the tech called to say he was fifteen minutes away. The firmware is updated, oil, spark plugs, and air filters changed, and specs calibrated.
With that completed, I was more than happy when we set off for this lovely weekend celebrating September in the north woods. No wonder the food tasted so good.
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Relative Something 