The Difference

A few weeks ago my wife and I met my extended family for a week's vacation.  We all met at a rented house in Monticello, KY, near where my Mother was born.  Altogether there were 18 of us including brothers, sisters, nephews, nieces, grandchildren, parents . . . you get the picture.  Everyone came and we enjoyed an amazing week where everyone go along and laughed and had a wonderful time.  For nearly a year before the event I had been working on a family story from my Mom and Dad's rememberances, with contributions from an aunt and my brother and sister.  This was no mean feat since everyone in our family has terrible handwriting!  Included with this was the inclusion of a selection pictures which Mom had been collecting all her life which had to be scanned and edited. 

Prior to the family vacation I had a draft version of the story printed and bound in book fashion at Office Depot.  I had formatted it with the page numbers on odd and even pages so the numbers would be at the outside margins.  The individual at Office Depot took my file, printed my book and I picked it up and brought it on vacation.

As I opened the book I realized that it was printed so that the page numbers were located on the inside margin and obviously wrong.  While we were in Kentucky we read portions of the story in the evening and then during the next day actually went to see some of the sites mentioned in the story.  This was interesting and made the history of my parents come alive for the grand- and great-grandchildren who had never visited any of these places or were aware of what being in the hills of Kentucky meant.  This made a great experience, i.e. being family and renewing relationships, even better!

When I got back home I made several changes to the story which had been mentioned while on vacation, added some pictures from the trip, and took my book back to Office Depot.  I didn't mention the pages being printed off, but there was a different individual at the print station who took my file and while I shopped around, printed the book.  When I came back to get it she told me that it had printed with the pages wrong but she re-printed it the correct way and asked what color I wanted for covers and the wire.  In other words, she was engaged in her job and concerned about providing a good experience to her customer.  I later found out she was a manager . . . and I wasn't surprised they had promoted someone who had these qualities.

So what was the difference in the printing experience?  The fact that one clerk was a manager and one wasn't?  That one was observant and one wasn't?  I think the difference is that one perceived the job as a job, nothing more and nothing less, while the other perceived the job as an opportunity to enrich someone else through a positive attitude and attention to detail.  That attitude and attention to detail impressed me.

So what is the difference in how you do your job?