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Tuesday, February 7. 2012

The Best Bet Is Service

The Giants won the Super Bowl! All the bets paid off! Here’s a bet that never crossed my mind: betting what would be the first score: touchdown, field goal or safety. That latter had odds of 50-1. Bet a buck, you win 50. Well, someone bet $1,000 and won $50,000.

That’s like looking at the results of a horse race and seeing the superfecta paid one-point-five mil on a one dollar bet — but you didn’t pick that one horse for your bet because, dammit, it was 64-1 odds. Yeah, I’m speaking from experience. If you’re betting the superfecta, the four horses that finish the race first, always include the longest shots.

That out of the way, now we’re back to real life. I just had the nicest conversation with a V.A. representative. The wait was ten minutes so, having been a customer service professional, I know she’s getting hammered with one call after another, with barely 30-45 seconds between calls. She was nice, asked me how to pronounce my last name (everyone gets it wrong) explained the entire process and well, she had me smiling at the end of the call. That’s how you do customer service.

It helps of course that as a customer you don’t call with an attitude and start getting hostile and aggressive with the person on the other end of the phone. Why be an asshole to someone you don’t know who is just doing their job? Always observe the Golden Rule.

Now I sit with my bowl of Cheerios contemplating the meaning of my life. Once during meditation, years ago, I received this message from the ether world: “Be of service to your community.” Shortly thereafter I got into some service work and have continued that to this day. Maybe that’s the meaning of life: be of service.

The Buddha said: “A generous heart, kind speech, and a life of service and compassion are the things which renew humanity.”

Posted by Tim Forkes in Life at 12:01 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

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