The refrigerator delivery
I was catching up with a former client I’ve known for years now. He’s very curious, and likes to ask me questions about my family and my work. I look forward to these conversations because it’s a nice flip in the dynamic. (Usually, I’m asking all of the questions.)
This time, he asked me if my work ever seems routine or ordinary. He wanted to know if there was a contrast between my experience – as someone who has coaching conversations multiple times a week, and the client’s experience – where coaching is perhaps more rare and special.
I pondered for a minute and told him I didn’t think so. Of course I enjoy some coaching sessions more than others. But I’m almost always aware of the significance of my work to the client, and I enjoy the variety in this job more than any other I’ve had. I can spot patterns and similarities, but everyone I work with is truly different.
Not so, I realized and shared, with a recent experience I’d had at home.
After months of frustration, we had finally decided to consign our refrigerator to wherever it is that old refrigerators go, and welcome its replacement. The day arrived. We put everything in coolers, cleared a path to the door and waited for the truck to show up outside our house.
It took our friendly two-man appliance delivery crew less than 5 minutes to get the old fridge out the door. They were able to carry it down our side steps to the driveway like it was just a bag of groceries, thanks to a type of shoulder harness I had never seen before.
On the flip side, it was: new refrigerator in, water line attached, protective plastic removed. The entire experience probably took a half hour at most. As I was thanking and tipping the lead driver, I asked him how many refrigerators he was installing today.
Ours was the third. He had 10 more to go.
After 23 years as a homeowner and 49 as a human being, I’d had this experience exactly twice. Meanwhile, the delivery driver was doing it several dozen times a week! We didn’t talk about his sense of fulfillment from the work, but the numbers seem to tell the story here. I can’t imagine he brings the same level of anticipation and fascination as the customer.
It was a great reminder to stay present and honor the experience of my coaching clients.
During our catch-up call, my former client immediately understood where I was going with this. (By now, he was used to my tangential stories and loosely-relevant analogies.) We closed the conversation with our usual pledge to stay in touch.
And about a month later, he texted me a picture of someone installing a new refrigerator at his place.
Coaching prompts:
Think of something you experience at work on a regular basis. When is this experience routine for you, and somewhat special for someone else?
What would it be like to slow down and appreciate that specialness from their point of view?