Amazing Customer Service

If only the world was run this way.

Anyone remember Grand Isle, LA? The formerly sleepy little town at the ends of the earth made famous by the infamous BP?


We have a property there which we rent out to vacationers, one of whom called at 8:30 last night to say that there was virtually no water pressure in the house. No way to shower, wash dishes or clothes. So I called the Jefferson Parish Water District, pressed the right number for emergency services, and got a very nice woman who asked me to hold while she checked for problems.

Now, this office is located on the west bank of New Orleans, a couple of hours away from the property. So, even if they could locate a problem, there wasn't much hope of getting it fixed soon enough to make our campers happy. Or so I thought.

No, the nice woman said, they didn't see anything. So they'd send someone over to check at the property site. Any idea how long, I asked. Not long, she said, there was someone nearby. 


Oh, yeah...that was really nice to hear.

Called the campers, gave them an update. Told them to let the workers in if they needed to do so. Called back almost an hour later to see what was up, and was told...


Broken pipe from the road, workers were digging it up to replace it even as we spoke, and water was expected to be restored in about an hour.

9 o'clock on a Friday night and workers were digging up a broken pipe, in the dar, and replacing it within an hour.


How awesome is that?

Jefferson Parish Water District, in Jefferson LA, you ROCK!


Oh, and let me just reflect on a little life lesson here, while I'm at it.

The vacationers who called me about the problem were very nice about it. No attitude, no anger. It was starting to get late, on their first night of vacation and they were having a fairly big problem, but  they started out just asking for help.

I was, I have to admit, a bit stressed at getting that kind of a call late on a Friday evening. I had visions of telling these poor people there was nothing we could do for the whole weekend and that they would be better off returning home...with a full refund, of course, of the thousands of dollars we had gleefully received from them.

Still, dealing with such a pleasant person at the Water District helped me to stay calm until we figured out exactly what was going on, and that conversation went smoothly as well. And just finding out that they had someone nearby to at least assess the problem made me feel a lot better. Waiting two hours for someone to reach the property would have driven me to drink in short order.

Finding that the problem could be fixed so quickly was the absolute best outcome anyone could have wished for, so we were all happy. And still...

There was potential here for hugely unpleasant financial consequences for us: refunding a reservation and/or expensive plumbing repairs. We are enormously grateful that neither of these came to pass, but just knowing the potential was there was stressful all by itself. 

Our poor guests were certainly aware that  their vacation could certainly be cut extremely short, and getting their money back wouldn't really make them as happy as they had been expecting to be.

So the potential for near disaster was very heavy in the air last night.

But everyone was very nice in confronting the problem.

And it made the whole thing soooo very much easier to bear.

It could have been so very different. Even with the good outcome, getting through it all could have been amazingly unpleasant.

But it wasn't.

Because everyone was very nice about it. 

This situation reminds me of the times I have remained calm in the face of anger, and seen that anger disappeared. And of the times I have been angry, only to be calmed by a reasonable voice.

Anger, in many situations, doesn't accomplish anything at all except to make us feel bad. Often, it is - at best - premature. At least every bit as often, it is completely unnecessary.

I wish I would have learned this at a younger age.

I could have gotten through so many situations a whole lot easier.